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THE LOVELY LADY HAMILTON 









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“ Never had painting or sculpture produced such a masterpiece.” 

(See page 24) 


The Lovely Lady Hamilton 

{"EMMA LYONNA") 

OR 

The Beauty and the Glory 


AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF ROYALTY 
AND REVOLUTION 


BY 

ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

#• 

author of 

“THE THREE MUSKETEERS,” MONTE CRISTO,” “THE REGAL 
BOX,” “THE KING’S GALLANT,” “ALL FOR A CROWN,” ETC. 


Translated from the French by Henry L. Williams 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 


T 23- 

.YtTU'L 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Received 

NOV 23 too? 

Copyright Entry 

L/V <fy% Z}j l joZ 

CLASS cx XX?. No 

L _ COPY A. j 

Copyright, 1903 
By STREET & SMITH 

The Lovely Lady Hamilton 


CONTENTS 


S> 


CHAPTER 

I. 

The Royal Galley .... 




PAGE 

. 7 

II. 

The Hero of the Nile .... 

. 



. 14 

III. 

The Ghastly Past — The Spectacular Present 



. 20 

IV. 

Banquo at the Banquet 




. 29 

V. 

The King and the Queen . 




. 40 

VI. 

In the Light 




. 45 

VII. 

In the Dark 




. 56 

VIII. 

The State Council .... 




. 65 

IX. 

Give and Take 




. 75 

X. 

A Superabundance of E’s . 




. 81 

XI. 

The Acrostic 




. 86 

XII. 

Sapphic Verses 




. 91 

XIII. 

One Letter is as Good as Another 




. 97 

XIV. 

The King Enacts Pilate 




. 106 

XV. 

A Nephew in the Hand 




. 114 

XVI. 

The Backward Journey 




. 121 

XVII. 

All is Lost — Plus Honor . 




. 130 

XVIII. 

Between Two Temptresses . 




. 140 

XIX. 

The King's Prayer Book . 




. 147 

XX. 

The Two Admirals .... 




. 155 

XXL 

The Emperor's Answer 




. 164 

XXII. 

The Flight 




. 172 


ii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

XXIII. A Curiou Sea Race 

XXIV. King Death Comes Aboard 

XXV. The Sea Sends Storms . 

XXVI. The Pilot 7 s Reward 

XXVII. Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards . 

XXVIII. Traitor or Patriot ? 

XXIX. The Sea Lion and His Prey . 

XXX. The Blotch on the Glory . 

XXXI. “They Rise Again” 

XXXII. The Shadow Falls . 


PAGE 

180 

191 

202 

215 

221 

230 

240 

245 

249 

260 


PREFA CE 


Nelson has been sketched in battle, slight, but entire 
steel; stiffly daring shot and sword, though at each vic- 
tory he left a limb; a parson’s son who had a touch of 
the Puritan, acclaimed for saving his country; but never 
so humanized by ardent love as in these pages. Marble 
breast over a tender heart; the iron hand which could 
retain at his single eye the telescope to calmly watch the 
enemy blow up from his red-hot shot ; his one arm spared 
on which should enter the royal coterie, “the Lovely Lady 
Hamilton.” This revelation is “the touch of nature,” and 
makes him brother to us all, no longer the historic muse’s 
reserved son. Dumas depicts Nelson crossing the con- 
ventional confines to pair off with the cynosure of the 
Neapolitan Court — just a child of Adam yearning for 
affection of the eternal Eve. 

Genius plays its puppets with a sure hand ; he places the 
two foremost objects of the Georgian era, sea hero and 
unmatchable Belle of the Court, on a splendid stage — 
La Bella Napoli. Naples, with the sinister glamour of 
the slumbering volcano ; its smoke vainly trying to veil the 
superb sunshine; its hidden fervor making its ductile 
people the feeblest folk and yet the most ferocious of 
Europe. The city which dances on the crater’s edge, is 
shown under the Vesuvian glare, the warships’ rocket 
flash, the mob-torches’ flare, the siege-guns’ flashing jets, 
and those tropical lightnings, accompanying the ephemeral 
but destructive storms. 

Out of the chaos into which the great French revolu- 
tion of 1789 hurled shattered society and sovereignties 


ii PREFACE 

rose, among other petty offsprings of the vast cataclysm, 
the Parthenopean Republic, reared by Italian patriots 
on the ruins of the Neapolitan-Bourbon throne. Its sensual 
King Ferdinando was expelled, with his fiery Queen Car- 
oline, sister of Queen Marie-Antoinette, escaping a 
similar doom. In these war clouds distinctly shone out 
the maritime glory of England, in the person of her 
greatest hero, Admiral Nelson. But all his bravery and 
genius could not brush away obstacles which withered 
under the smile of a mere woman, Emma Hart, otherwise 
Lyons, called ungrudgingly “the Lovely Lady Hamilton.” 
Her witchery aided his talent, and the French were swept 
from the seas. 

Her life is altogether a romance, and evidences that 
beauty, by sheer might, can elevate its happy possessor to 
the throne. It was she who baffled cabinet ministers and 
the formidable republic, and kept Napoleon sealed up in 
Egypt. 

Emma was born in a cot, her father being a coal miner. 
When he died, leaving his widow and child penniless, they 
had to tramp Northern England, at risk of being shipped 
to Botany Bay as vagrants. On returning homeward, 
however, the lord of the manor considerately allowed a 
pittance with which the girl received a parish schooling. 
The mother dying, and the allowance with her, the girl 
became nursemaid ; but ambition stirred her to rise above 
“the station in which Providence had placed her” ; she 
staked her restricted savings on equipping herself to go 
to London. Here she fell in with a fellow-servant who, 
however, had found the theatre more profitable than 
sweeping rooms ; with her, while awaiting an opening “on 
the boards,” she saw the plays and was fired by them, 
learned taste in attire from seeing the aristocrats in the 
park, and forced to earn a penny, let her growing and 
manifest charms serve as sufficient introduction to the 


PREFACE iii 

profession of artists’ model. Thus she was the favorite 
study for Romney, the celebrated painter. He set her for- 
ward as the chief inspirer of his works, and she became 
the artistic standard. 

A popular quack, named Dr. Graham, essaying the 
tricks of Mesmer, in vogue in Paris, hired Emma to rep- 
resent the Goddess Health in his lecture hall. All London 
crowded it to worship this “effect of his Beauty-per- 
fector” rather than to listen to his claptrap. 

Among the dilettante was the rich and eccentric arch- 
eologist, Sir William Hamilton, foster brother of King 
George, and enjoying the means to gratify a mania for the 
splendors of Greek art. He saw in this peerless woman a 
modem realization of the masterpieces of Phidias and 
Apelles, and married her. But not to have his bride 
mobbed on the promenade, he embarked with her, being 
made British Ambassador to Naples. 

It was plunging over the pan-edge into the fire. The 
sensitive Italians bowed to her graces and attractions. 
When she disembarked, it was like Venus greeted on 
rising from the sea. The British blond aroused the glut- 
tonous King out of his table stupor and kindled an affec- 
tion unquenchable in his Queen. The poets and artists 
and singers had no other idol, and she swayed statesmen 
like the impressionable lazaroni. 

She might have lolled her life away on sumptuous 
cushions, but she chose to parade her patriotism, personal 
passion and gratitude for the royal house by baffling the 
French Republic and the native rebels with a hate like her 
mistress’. She used all her influence to nullify the French- 
Neapolitan treaty of neutrality, and enabled Nelson to 
refit his battered fleet for the annihilation of the French 
fleet at Aboukir (1798). Farther still, she urged the 
Englishman, subjected like all by this “siren in the sea of 
the world,” to aid the tottering King to suppress the 


IV 


PREFACE 


Parthenopean Republic. He cannonaded and executed 
the revolutionists at her beck. When Nelson died, after 
the battle of Trafalgar (1805), the portrait of “his 
guardian angel” was hanging in his cabin, where naval 
etiquette prescribed the King’s should be, and her minia- 
ture was on his heart. As he lay on “the dying deck” he 
sent a loving kiss to his darling, and expressed his hope 
that the nation would provide for her and their love-child. 
But she died in want in 1815, and the child suffered from 
the neglect of the Puritans. “A less unhappy fate should 
have visited a woman,” says Southey, who saw her in her 
prime, “whose personal accomplishments were seldom 
equaled, and whose powers of mind were not less fasci- 
nating than her person.” 

Dumas has chosen for his theme the most distinguished 
and appetizing phases of her luminous career, and not 
one of her lovable and loving qualities is omitted in these 
pages. H. L. W. 


The Lovely Lady Hamilton. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE ROYAL GALLEY. 

The magnificent Bay of Naples opens out between 
Cape Campanella and the rock on which Virgil imposed 
the name of Misena Headland, in locating there Hector’s 
trumpeter’s grave. 

This gulf, always gay, and furrowed by thousands of 
craft, ringing with laugh, and song, and musical instru- 
ments, was noisier and more animated than usual on the 
22d of September, 1798. 

The month of September is splendid here, as it comes 
between summer’s devouring heats and autumn’s capri- 
cious showers. The day we come upon was one of the 
finest. 

In golden flood the sunbeams poured upon the hilly 
amphitheatre which ran around from Nisida to Portici, as 
if to embrace the blessed city against the flanks of Mount 
St. Elmo, surmounting the old stronghold of the Angevin 
princes, like a mural crown set on the brow of modern 
Parthenope. 

The immense azure sheet, like carpet set with gold 
spangles, shuddered under a light, balsamic, and odorifer- 
ous morning breeze ; so soft that it brought a smile upon 
the grateful cheek it fanned ; so sprightly that it developed 
in the bosoms inhaling it that tremendous aspiration for 


8 


The Royal Galley. 

infinitude which makes vain man believe he is, or may be, 
a demi-god, and that this world is but a mounting-block 
for a ride as on Pegasus. 

Eight o’clock sounded from San Fernandino’s Church, 
on the square of that name. 

Scarcely was the last vibration lost in space than the 
thousand bells of the three hundred sacred edifices gladly 
and tumultuously bounded out of the belfry apertures, 
and the fort’s cannon, bursting out in thunder-peal, 
seemed trying to smother the uproar, while wrapping the 
town in smoke and flame. Fort St. Elmo, flaming and 
fuming like a crater in eruption, imitated Vesuvius active, 
before the real Vesuvius, dead. 

The bells and the guns saluted a glittering galley which 
was shooting out from the docks, crossing the military 
port, and standing out gallantly for the open sea, under 
both oar and sail. It was followed by ten or twelve 
smaller barges, almost as lavishly ornamented as the cap- 
tain-galley, which might have vied with the Bucentaur, 
carrying the Doge to wed the sea with Venice. 

The commander of this vessel was an officer, in his 
forty odd years, wearing the rich uniform of the Neapoli- 
tan navy. His visage, of manly, severe, and imperial 
beauty, was tanned by sun and tempest. Though his head 
was bare, on account of respect for his passengers, he 
held it loftily ; the hair was grizzled, showing that it had 
many times had the storm pass over it. One did not 
need to see the speaking-trumpet, hanging by a thong to 
his right wrist, to know at a glance that he was the chief ; 
for nature had impressed rule indelibly in his tone and in 
his glance. 

His name was Francesco Caracciolo, and he came of 
the antique race of the princes of his name, accustomed 
to be ambassadors and favorites of royal heads. 


The Royal Galley. 9 

His attitude on the poop was as if it were a day of fight- 
ing. 

The stern was covered with a purple awning, fringed 
with gold and emblazoned with the coat-of-arms of the 
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ; it was intended to shield 
the august passengers from the sun. 

The passengers formed three groups, varying in as- 
pect and demeanor. 

The most notable consisted of five men, occupying the 
center of the shaded spot, and three of them stood on the 
edge. Around their necks were ribbons of many colors, 
belonging to the orders of knighthood of all countries ; 
and their chests were adorned with stars, crosses and 
broaches. Two of them displayed, as distinctive tokens 
of their office, gold keys crossed on their buttons; they 
were royal chamberlains. 

The principal person was a man nearing fifty, tall and 
thin, but built on strong lines. The habit of bending for- 
ward to hear the better had slightly stooped his shoulders. 
In spite of the coat he wore, covered with gold embroid- 
ery, emblems of chivalry in diamonds, and the title of 
'‘majesty” continually applied to him, he had a vulgar 
look, and none of his features, analyzed, revealed regal 
dignity. 

His feet were large, his hands coarse, and there was no 
delicacy in the joints. The bald brow denoted the ab- 
sense of lofty feelings ; the retreating chin, a weak and 
irresolute character, and the immeasurably long and full 
nose was the sign of base luxury and gross instincts. 

Alone, the eye was quick and sarcastic, but yet that was 
false, and sometimes cruel. 

This was Ferdinand IV., son of Charles III., King of 
the Two Sicilies and of Jerusalem, Infanta of Spain, but 
whom the lazzaroni of Naples simply dubbed “King 
Nosey (A r asone).” 


10 


The Royal Galley. 

The man with whom he was most directly conversing, 
but the least gorgeously clad of all, though his was the 
laced coat of foreign diplomats, was an old gentleman, 
close to seventy. He was slight and small, with a lack of 
hair, white and brushed back. 

His face was narrow, with pointed nose and chin, 
mouth drawn in, with the gaze clear, investigating and in- 
telligent. His hands, of which he took extreme care, and 
over which fell masses of admirable English point lace, 
were loaded with gold rings in which were set precious 
antique cameos. He wore only two orders, the local 
badge of St. Januarius, and the Red Ribbon of the Bath, 
with its starry medallion, displaying a scepter between a 
rose and a thistle, among three imperial crowns. 

We see in him Sir William Hamilton, foster brother 
of King George III., and for years British Ambassador 
to this Italian court. 

The three others were the prime minister, John Acton, 
of Irish origin; the royal aide-de-camp, Marquis Malas- 
pina, and the royal premier’s chamberlain, Duke of Ascoli. 

The second group, like a painting by Angelica Kauff- 
mann, comprised but two women, on whom, although 
ignorant of their station, it was impossible for the dullest 
observer not to bestow peculiar attention. 

The leader, though past life’s brilliant period of 
youth, preserved remarkable traits of beauty. Her figure, 
rather above than below medium height, was beginning 
to be marred by growing stoutness; but this served also 
to diminish certain wrinkles which were on a brow of 
ivory white, broad and domineering. Less through age 
than by political worries and the weight of her crown, 
they came ; but her forty-five years were not betrayed 
thereby. Her light hair, uncommonly fine, and of a 
charming tint, admirably enframed a face which had its 
primitive oval distorted by the contractions of pain and 


The Royal Galley. > i 

nervousness. Her worn blue eyes were often lit up by 
thoughts, and then flared a dull fire like electricity ; it had 
been love, then ambition, and now was hatred. Her lips 
were carmine and moist, and were often set in a disdainful 
expression. Her teeth were still fine and lustrous as 
pearls. 

Nose and chin were of a pure Grecian line; the neck, 
shoulders and arms had remained irreproachable. 

This was the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa 
of Austria, sister of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, 
Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of the Two Sicilies, as 
being consort of Ferdinando. For reasons which will be 
unfolded in due course, she had taken him in indifference 
in the outset, then disgust, and now held him in scorn. 
This was not to be the last stage, yet political exigencies 
brought together the illustrious partners when they were 
not parted completely. Then the monarch went hunting 
in his preserves, or reposed in his ‘‘snuggery” at San 
Leucio, while the queen played at politics with the Minis- 
ter Acton or reposed under orange groves like an en- 
slaved princess at the feet of her favorite, Lady Hamil- 
ton, the “Emma Lyonna” of the Italians. 

One glimpse of the latter sufficed to make understood 
the signal favor she enjoyed from the queen, as well as 
the frenetic enthusiasm raised by this enchanting model 
among the English artists, who have pictured her in 
endless attitudes, and the Neapolitan poets who sang 
her in all keys. 

If ever a human being arrived at the perfection of 
beauty, then it was Emma, Lady Hamilton. 

If you looked long at her — and who could wrest the 
eye away ? — the goddess appeared where the woman 
stood. 

Still we will endeavor to paint this woman, who 
dropped into the dingiest pit-hole of poverty, but attained 


12 


The Royal Galley. 

the most splendid summit of prosperity. At this time she 
was held to rival — nay, outrival — in gracefulness and 
comeliness the Greek Aspasia, the Egyptian Cleopatra, 
and the Roman Olympia. 

When one tired of examining her in detail, each new 
phase was a successive dazzlement. The chestnut tresses 
wound around a countenance like a girl in her teens. 
Her eyes could not be called any one color ; like the rain- 
bow, they sparkled under brows which only Raphael 
could have traced ; her white and flexible neck was as the 
swan’s; arms and shoulders, they recalled not the cold 
contour of the Greek statuaries, but the living undulations 
of Germain Pilon’s; supple, slightly rounded, palpitating 
— the gracefulness was in itself charming. 

Her mouth was like the fairy princess’, which dropped 
precious stones; hers let fall pleasant sounds and loving 
kisses. 

In contrast with the very royal bedizenment of Queen 
Carolina, Emma was arrayed in a long, plain tunic of 
white cashmere with ample sleeves ; it was in the Greek 
style, pleated and drawn in at the waist by a red and gold 
morocco belt, incrusted with rubies, opals and turquoises ; 
the clasp was a splendid modern cameo, representing her 
husband, Sir William. She wore a costly Indian shawl, 
with which she would perform the Oriental shawl dance 
to amuse the queen. 

The third collection consisted of two men talking sci- 
ence and political economy, who were the prince royal and 
his librarian, and his pale consort, the Princess Clemen- 
tine of Austria. 

At fifteen she had left the palace to wed Francis of 
Bourbon, now Duke of Calabria, and since then, she had 
not once been seen to smile. 

The infant, pressed to her bosom, was to live to be a 
second Maria Carolina in name, with her mother’s weak- 


The Royal Galley. 13 

ness, but not her vices ; she married the Duke of Berry, 
from whom Louvehs “steel divorce” set her free. 

All this cluster of princes, dukes and royalties glided 
over the azure sea, under the purple hangings, to the 
sound of melody directed by Cimarosa, court composer. 
They were driven forward by the gentle Baya breezes, 
whose voluptuous breath goes to make the roses flourish 
at Poestum. 

At the same time, there loomed up on the sky line, gra- 
dually enlarging, though still beyond Capri and Cam- 
panella Head, a warship. On sighting the royal flotilla 
it changed its course to sail nearer and fired a hailing can- 
non shot. Through the puff of white smoke, a ball was 
seen running up to the gaff, and, unfolding, displayed 
the English red cross. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE HERO OF THE NILE. 

The vessel showing the British colors and heading 
for the royal fleet was named the Vanguard. The officer 
commanding was Commodore Horatio Nelson, fresh from 
destroying the French fleet at Aboukir, and depriving 
General Bonaparte and his republican army of all hope 
of returning home. 

Nelson was one of the greatest seamen that ever ex- 
isted, the only man who counterbalanced — and, truth to 
say, overbalanced — Napoleon’s fortune on the European 
Continent. 

He was at this epoch a man of forty. His father was 
a petty village curate, and he had lost his mother when 
young. An uncle in the navy who was a relative of Wal- 
pole, the premier, procured his appointment as midship- 
man, and he went with him to sea on the Redoubtable. 

Going to the Polar regions, he was shut up six months 
in the ice, had a body-to-body struggle with a white bear, 
which would have gulped him down but for a shipmate 
thrusting his musket down its throat and blowing a hole 
in his side. 

Sailing to the Equator, he lost himself in the Peruvian 
wilds where, drinking water into which a bough of the 
poisonous manchineel tree had fallen and soaked, he was 
badly sickened for life. 

When in Canada, he fell in love and offered to send in 
his resignation in order to make a foolish match. His 
officers seized him by surprise and carried him aboard his 


The Hero of the Nile. 15 

ship, the Seahorse, and he was not restored his liberty 
until well out to sea. 

When Toulon was surrendered to the English, Nelson 
was captain of the Agamemnon ; he was sent on this deck 
to Naples to announce to the King of Sicily the taking of 
that foremost French military port. 

Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador, met 
him in the king’s presence, took him to his residence and, 
leaving him in the reception-room, went to tell his wife : 

“Emma, I am bringing you a little fellow who cannot 
boast of his beauty!” 

Sir William was one of the first to make a cult of 
beauty ; he worshiped the lovely in art and had carried his 
way to own the finest living Venus in Europe by wedding 
Emma Lyons, in the teeth of all kinds of remonstrance. 

“But,” he went on, “I shall not be much astonished 
if he does not some day prove the glory of our country 
and the dread of our foes !” 

“How came you to foresee so much?” she inquired. 

“By the few words we exchanged. ‘By the foot of 
Hercules one recognizes the god !’ Come and do him the 
honors, my dear ! I have never offered my house to any 
of our officers, but I do not wish a man of this character 
to lodge elsewhere.” 

So it came about that Nelson dwelt in the British Em- 
bassy. 

Did Emma also divine the greatness of this unprepos- 
sessing hero ? It is undoubted that the lady’s overwhelm- 
ing charms produced their inevitable effect upon him. 
At all events, he obtained from Naples the reinforcement 
and supplies he required, and went away wildly, deeply in 
love with the incomparable siren. 

Was it from the pure ambition of glory, or to cure 
himself of an unconquerable passion that he sought to 
throw away his life at the capture of Clavi, where he lost 


1 6 


The Hero of the Nile. 


an eye, or in the Teneriffe Expedition, where he left an 
arm ? None can tell, but on both occasions he played with 
his life as though he set little value on it. 

He came back maimed and half blinded, but Lady 
Hamilton displayed that tender and sympathetic pity 
which beauty must hold for the martyrs of glory. 

It was in June, 1798, that he paid his second visit to 
Naples and again was by Lady Hamilton’s side. 

It was Nelson’s critical position. 

Charged to blockade the French fleet in Toulon and 
demolish it if it stole forth, he let it slip through his 
lines, and it took Malta on its flight and disembarked 
thirty thousand troops at Alexandria. 

Nor was this all ; driven off by storms, losing heavily, 
short of food and water, he could not continue the pur- 
suit, but was obliged to refit at Gibraltar. 

It seemed he was lost ; it was natural to accuse him 
of treason, for the sound seamen had passed a month 
in the Mediterranean, which is but a salt water lake, seek- 
ing a fleet of thirteen ships of the line and nearly four 
hundred transports, not only without overtaking them but 
without even tracing their wake. 

There was a French ambassador at Naples, and it was 
necessary to obtain under his very eyes, and with the 
winking of the Sicilian Court, powers to draw water and 
collect supplies from Messina and Syracuse, as well as 
material for spars and masts in Calabrian forests. 

The two Sicilies had a treaty with France commanding 
the strictest neutrality, and to allow this to Nelson was 
to belie the treaty and break the neutrality. 

While Ferdinando and Carolina detested the French, 
that might not be enough — but Emma Hamilton was on 
the spot. More through her love for England than their 
hatred for France, all that Nelson desired was granted. 
He knew that nothing but a great victory could save him 


>7 


The Hero of the Nile. 

from the fate of Admiral Byng. He quitted Naples more 
loving than ever, because grateful, vowing to win or die 
“on the dying deck.” 

He won, and was all but killed. Never since powder 
was invented, and cannon made to profit by its invention, 
had any naval combat so shaken up the seas with dis- 
aster. 

Out of the thirteen battle-ships in the French fleet, 
two only managed to escape the flames and the enemy. 
One ship, the Orient , was blown up ; another and a frig- 
ate were sunk, and nine were captured. 

During the action, the admiral had acted the part of the 
hero. He had offered himself to death, who would have 
none of him but the blood tribute from a severe wound. 
A last shot, out of the wrecked Guillaume Tell, broke 
a yardarm of the Vanguard, which he commanded. It 
fell and struck him on the forehead just as he raised his 
head to learn what damage had been wrought; this blow 
ripped the skin over his sole good eye, and knocked him 
down, smothered in blood. 

Believing the wound mortal, he began to speak of his 
last wishes ; but the surgeon, at the heels of the chaplain, 
examining the skull, found the bones intact ; it was merely 
a scalp wound, though the skin flapped down to the 
mouth. As soon as this was replaced and smoothed back, 
Nelson picked up his speaking-trumpet and resumed his 
work of devastation, thundering: “Keep up the fire!” 
There was Titan’s breath in his hatred for France. 

Swift dispatch boats bore to England and the two 
Sicilies the news of Nelson’s victory and the destruction 
of the republican fleet. So greatly were the French 
feared and the Revolution execrated that, through all 
Europe, was an immense hurrah of joy resounding even 
into Asia. 


1 8 ■ The Hero of the Nile. 

After being mad with rage, the Naples Court, above 
others, became furious with delight. 

Lady Hamilton received the admiral’s letter, announ- 
cing the defeat which shut up thirty thousand French 
soldiers in Egypt, and Bonaparte with them. 

It is curious to measure the terror impressed on 
Europe’s sovereigns by the union of Bonaparte and 
France, by the presents Nelson received from these rulers, 
wild with glee at seeing France debased and believing her 
champion ruined. 

England made Nelson a peer of the realm, and awarded 
a gold medal ; his title of Baron of the Nile had two thou- 
sand a year attached to it; the House of Lords awarded 
the same amount ; Ireland supplied a thousand a year ; the 
East India Company gave ten thousand guineas down on 
the nail. As for royal gifts, snuff boxes and the like, 
we have no room for the catalogue. 

On receiving Nelson’s advices, Lady Hamilton ran to 
her friend, the queen, and held the paper open to her. On 
casting her eyes on it, Caroline shrieked with pleasure. 
She recalled her son and the king, and ran like a fury 
through the rooms, kissing all the ladies she met, and 
returned to hug the bearer of good tidings. She did not 
weary of reiterating: 

“Nelson! What a brave Nelson! Oh, the saver and 
liberator of Italy! Lord protect him and preserve!” 

Without heeding the French envoy, although he was 
that Garat who had read to King Louis XVI. his death 
sentence, and was sent to Naples as a warning of the 
Directory to the Sicilian monarchy, she ordered full prep- 
arations to be made for welcoming the British admiral 
as a triumphant warrior should be greeted. She believed 
there was nothing more to be feared from France. 

On her part, being a woman, she reserved as her offer- 
ing to the conqueror one that all the titles, boons and 


The Hero of the Nile. 


19 


favors of all the potentates of Europe could not vie with 
— she approved the passion of the sea king for Emma the 
Lovely. 

On the morning of the memorable twenty-second of 
September, 1798, she called Lady Hamilton to her and 
said, with a kiss on her brow among the chestnut tresses . 

“My loved Emma, in order that I should be the ruler 
here — the true king, and you the queen under me, this 
hero must be devoted to us, and I leave it to you to en- 
chain him !” 

Let us explain why a queen should enforce such an 
enslavement on an English ambassador’s wife. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE GHASTLY PAST — THE SPECTACULAR PRESENT. 

Never had woman a more extraordinary destiny than 
Emma Lyons. 

Never was a past more streaked with clouds and sheen. 
She was never to know precisely her birthday or its place. 
As far back as her mind would go, she saw herself as a 
child of three or so, coarsely clad in one garment, walk- 
ing barefoot over hilly roads, in a northern clime, amid 
mists, clutching with her frozen hand at her mother's 
gown. This was a poor country woman who took her 
up in her arms when she was too tired to walk or when 
a burn had to be forded. 

She remembered that she was often hungry and cold 
in these wanderings. 

In the towns which they passed through, she recalled 
their stoppings before a fine house or a bakery, where her 
mother taught her to put out her little hand; she was 
told to ask, and while at the fine house she rarely re- 
ceived a paltry coin ; at the baker’s they usually had a roll 
given them. 

At dusk they would be sheltered in a barn or the stable 
of some lonely farm. To be warmed by the kine’s breath 
was a luxury to the tired child ; in these places, they were 
not allowed to depart without having a bowl of fresh- 
drawn milk in the morn. 

The end of this journey was a petty town in Flintshire, 
where John Lyons, Emma’s father, “hailed from.” He 
had died young, afar from his source, looking for that 
mirage of the poor worker — work. 


21 


The Ghastly Past. 

Her mother becoming a farm servant here, Emma was a 
goose-girl, driver of the cows or sheep; she remembered 
a brook in which she studied the effect of flowers in her 
hair. 

When about ten, an Earl of Halifax, benevolent toward 
his tenants, furnished the funds for the girl to have an 
humble education. Emma retained of this dame’s school 
a vision of her form in a beehive straw hat, a blue frock 
and a black pinafore. Here she made rapid progress in 
the rudiments, thanks to her wondrous sharp aptitude, but 
her mother came to take her away. Lord Halifax had 
died, and his heir did not do charity to any but his own 
poor. Emma was sent to a widower’s house, where three 
little children were left on hand. 

She was out walking with the children, when she was 
noticed on the road by a painter, who uttered a cry of 
delight at her charming looks. He was Romney, the 
artist, who later became famous. He inquired of her as 
to her wages and the like, and said : 

“You are wasted here, pretty child. If you were to 
come to town (London), an artist like me would gladly 
pay you five guineas every time you came for a sitting.” 

He gave her some gold for that sketch, and his written 
address. But while she took the directions, she repelled 
the gold. She remarked that she was saving up her 
money for her betterment, and could travel even to Lon- 
don at her own charge. 

She had looked long and narrowly at the sketch, and 
failed to see what would justify the painter and his broth- 
ers in paying five guineas for such easy work. But on 
looking in the mirror, she suddenly revised this dispara- 
ging criticism. She had saved up some four pounds, and 
with this she started for London. 

She had concluded that she was surpassingly handsome. 

Indeed, on her farewell a sister servant observed : 


22 


The Ghastly Past. 

“You are right; were I good looking as you, I would 
not stick in this barren country. Your face will be your 
fortune in town, and when you have a house of your own, 
send me word and I shall run to be your housemaid !” 

She was met with disappointment in town, for Mr. 
Romney, rising in importance, was on a sketching tour 
abroad. 

Emma was dumfounded; but she remembered that 
her late employers, the Hawardens, had a nephew in the 
capital, a noted surgeon. She found him at home. Dr. 
Hawarden was a worthy gentleman, who took her into 
his house and let her be companion to his wife. The lady 
liked her and was not jealous ; quite otherwise, for she 
took her to the play with her. 

The Drury Lane Theatre curtain, on rising, revealed a 
new world to the rustic girl. The stage was presenting 
“Romeo and Juliet,” that love’s young dream which has 
no parallel in any tongue. Emma returned home bewil- 
dered, dazed and intoxicated. She could not sleep a 
second that night’s end, trying to repeat the fragments 
of the marvelous balcony scene. 

The following day, she borrowed Shakespeare from the 
library, and in three days had Juliefs part by heart. She 
began to muse over the means to return into the play- 
house and a second time quaff that sweet poison of love 
and poetry in magical mixture. From that moment she 
went to the theatre as often as possible, read all the ro- 
mances of the press, and in her room repeated all the 
scraps of playbooks she held in mind, and imitated the 
dancing steps. What was recreation to her mistress, be- 
came occupation to the maid. 

Emma was now fifteen, in all the flower of youth and 
beauty. 

Her pliant and harmonious form, yielding to all poses 


The Ghastly Past. 23 

by its natural undulations, attained the labored perfec- 
tion of the most skillful ballet-dancers. 

Her face had retained the bloom of childhood and the 
velvet of modesty; by its impressibility it endowed the 
features with supreme mobility. In sorrow all was af- 
fecting, and in joy the beholder was gladdened. The 
spiritual candor so appeared under the purity of the line- 
aments that it was said that she was goodness marred by 
want of prudence. 

It was impossible for Emma, after having seen the 
sights of London, and its beauties wrapped and decked 
with the treasures of all-the-world’s tribute to the modern 
Tyre, to console herself for the daily genteel drudgery 
with her stage-struck consolation in her own rooms. 

Besides, she heard that Mr. Romney had become 
town’s talk, and his lure of “five guineas a sitting” hum- 
med in her ears. 

She went to his studio, and she was not so glad as he 
on seeing that his forecast had been verified. Romney 
has painted Emma Lyons under all forms — Ariadne, the 
memorable Bacchante, Leda, Armida, and so on, a gallery 
without duplicates; and an engraver devoted his talents 
almost entirely to perpetuating this female Proteus, whose 
exhaustless attitudinizing would have delighted antiquity. 

This advertising of the existence of a beauty impossible 
to see off canvas or out of marble, attracted the heed of a 
charlatan, Dr. Graham, who professed a cult of material 
beauty. 

He found that here was the living Venus to illustrate 
his lectures, and to be pointed to as the palpable evidence 
of the truth of his theory. He had to pay dearly for this 
treasure, but it was priceless to him as it was peerless to 
the world. 

He had a gilded couch made for her ; a veil for this 
priestess of the old, old creed, and he trumpeted to the 


24 The Ghastly Past. 

public that he at last could exhibit the unique and su- 
preme epitome of beauty which would henceforth cause 
his theories to triumph. 

On this appeal made to luxury and science, all the 
adepts in the universal faith in woman's charms ran to 
Dr. Graham's Temple of Hygeia. 

His triumph was complete. Never had painting or 
sculpture produced such a masterpiece. Apelles and 
Phidias were vanquished. 

Attracted by that curiosity which swayed the town, 
young Sir Charles Grenville, of that Warwick family 
whose head was surnamed “the king-maker,” a nephew 
of Sir William Hamilton, saw Emma Lyons, and fell des- 
perately in love with such an impeccable beauty. It was 
one of those wild and incontinent loves which flame up 
to enlighten the whole world on the object. He told his 
uncle of his discovery, and added that he had promised 
to marry the terrestrial goddess. So much was he in 
earnest that he had engaged teachers in the accomplish- 
ments of high society for his betrothed, and, what cost 
even more, pledged himself to compensate Dr. Graham 
for the loss of his almost divine example. He would 
marry the unrivaled Emma on attaining his majority if 
the family opposed an earlier union. 

Under the first professors in the capital, Emma had 
made immense progress in music, elocution and drawing ; 
after perfecting herself in her own tongue, she had 
learned French and Italian ; she recited poetry like Sappho 
and blank verse like a Siddons. As for dancing and 
striking attitudes, Emma Lyons had no more to learn 
from the first Grimaldi and Vestris II. 

Unfortunately for this chance of Emma Lyons, known 
at this period as “Hart,” entering into the pale of the 
British peerage by the lead of Grenville, a change in 


The Ghastly Past. 25 

the ministry made him lose an office on which depended 
the most of his income. 

Sir Charles, like the rest of the patricians, did not think 
of lessening his expenses; he applied to his uncle for 
money. The old gentleman was obdurate for some time, 
but, on a final appeal, wrote from his country seat that 
he would soon be in town, when he would “look into the 
matter.” 

Sir Charles did not wish this act, which resembled a 
lawyer’s, rather than the yielding of the generous uncle 
of the current comedy. He wanted as little to see Sir 
William as for him to see his sweetheart, and yet she 
might prevail where the spendthrift might not. 

Sir William ran up to town a week before his appoint- 
ment. He employed the sennight in making inquiries 
about his nephew and the prize of which he had boasted. 

Unhappily, beauty makes foes as well as friends, and 
his informants represented the Circe out of the notorious 
Graham’s fane as a dangerous adventuress. 

Sir William, therefore, accosted his relative with no 
alternative but for him to renounce this mesalliance or 
give up his succession, which meant all his revenue. He 
gave him three days to decide. 

All hope pivoted upon Emma, who might obtain the 
young amoroso’s pardon if she showed that he was not to 
blame. 

She understood that this old beau would be hardened 
against the powdered, rouged, overdressed belle of the 
period, and, pushing aside the array of her expected posi- 
tion, resumed the rustic apparel of early days — the straw 
hat, plain frock and simple carriage ; her tears or smiles, 
coming at will, as they do to a consummate actress, her 
caressing voice and coaxing gaze should do the rest. 

She had no sooner been shown into Sir William’s pres- 
ence than she threw herself at his feet. Whether it was 


2 6 


The Ghastly Past. 

a happy chance or skillful preconcerting, her hat-ribbon 
became loose, and down fell her splendid chestnut tresses 
upon her admirable shoulders. 

In “situations of woe” this enchantress was inimitable. 

The old archaeologist was until then enrapt in the 
marbles of Athens and carvings of Greece. He was for 
the first time to behold this living figure surpassing the 
cold and pallid goddesses of Praxiteles. 

That passion which he could not comprehend in his 
nephew, violently entered his heart and overcame him 
without his trying to resist it. 

Only, he overlooked the charmer’s low birth, his neph- 
ew’s debts, the publicity of Dr. Graham’s triumph, and 
every objection, on condition that Emma should enter 
the family as his bride, and not poor Charles’. 

The intermediary had conquered more than she had set 
out to do ; she foresaw that she could not dwell in London 
after having incurred Sir Charles’ legitimate wrath, which 
carried along with it that of his young and gallant friends 
who liked a certain fairness in love matches. She de- 
clared that she would accept Sir William’s hand in wed- 
lock, but on condition that, taking the embassy of the 
Two Sicilies, she would accompany her husband as the 
lady ambassadress. 

Sir William consented to everything; Sir Charles had 
to console himself with his debts, incurred for this fleet- 
ing fiancee , being liquidated. 

Emma’s, Lady Hamilton, loveliness made its customary 
effect at Naples ; not only did it astound, but it dazzled. 

As a distinguished archaeologist, mineralogist and an- 
tiquary, Sir William had the suffrages of scientific worth- 
ies ; as foster brother of King George III. and his friend 
as well, all the courtiers bowed to him ; as the ambassa- 
dor of Great Britain, political notables gathered around 
him. With her facility in acquiring any useful art, it took 


27 


The Ghastly Past. 

but a few days for the Englishwoman to learn as much 
science and politics as she wanted to know ; ere long, for 
the frequenters of Hamilton’s drawing-room the lady’s 
judgments were laws. 

Her success was not to stop there. 

Scarcely was she presented at Court than the Queen 
Maria Carolina proclaiming her the intimate friend and 
created her the inseparable bosom-intimate. This daugh- 
ter of the great Empress Maria Theresa not only showed 
herself in public with this ex-goddess of the Graham 
Olympus, but took an airing in the Toledo Street drive, 
in the same carriage and wearing a similar dress, while 
she would pass the evening in seeing this amateur dancer, 
posturer and mime reproduce the most ardent statues of 
antiquity. 

Hence, hatred and jealousy without number against the 
queen’s favorite. 

Carolina heard what insolent comments were floated 
about this suddem and marvelous friendship; but hers 
was one of those absolute and valorous spirits which carry 
the head high to confront calumny and slander. Who- 
ever wished to be well received by her had to share his 
homage between her associate in the government, Acton, 
and the English fascinatress. 

Everybody knows the events of the year 1789 — the 
taking of the Bastille of Paris and the bringing back the 
King Louis XVI. to Versailles; of 1793, when king and 
queen were executed; while in ’96 and ’^7, Gen. Bona- 
parte’s victories in Italy shook all the thrones, and, mo- 
mentarily, at least, crumbled down the oldest and least 
mutable of them all, the Pontifical Chair. 

Amid these deeds, which had a terrible repercussion in 
the Naples Court, Nelson appeared, and enlarged, as the 
champion of the aged royalties. 

His victory at Aboukir restored hope to the monarchs, 


28 The Ghastly Past. 

clapping their hands to their heads whence their diadems 
were falling. 

At any cost, Maria Carolina, being a woman of greed, 
all for riches, ambition and power, wished to preserve 
hers. 

It is not astonishing that she called to her aid the fasci- 
nation her dearest friend exercised over all men. She 
said to Lady Hamilton, on the morning when she led her 
to the British admiral : 

“This man must be ours, and for that he must be your 
puppet 1” 

What a recompense for the members offered on the 
altar of his country, by this son of a humble rural pastor ; 
for the hero who owed his greatness to his own courage 
and his fame to his genius, to see the whole Court, headed 
by the king and queen, and have for the reward of his 
conflicts this beauteous creature’s smiles! 

He adored her 


CHAPTER IV. 


BANQUO AT THE BANQUET. 

We saw how, at the cannot shot fired on the Vanguard , 
the British ensign rose to the gaff, almost as maimed as 
its commander, and that Nelson recognized the royal train 
coming toward him. 

The captain-galley was already flagged, with both the 
national and the royal colors. 

When the two vessels were but a cable’s length apart, 
the band on the royal barge began to play “God Save the 
King,” to which the English seamen, manning the yards, 
replied with three cheers, uttered with that regularity 
which the English infuse in this official demonstration. 

Nelson ordered the helm to be set so that the barge 
would draw up alongside the ship. He then had the 
side-steps let down on that side instead of the rope ladder, 
and waited at the head of the way, hat in hand. 

All the sailors and marines, even those pale and ailing 
from not being healed of their wounds, were called upon 
deck, and presented arms in three-deep file. 

The captain expected to see the visitors come up and 
over the side in etiquette order — that is, the king, the 
queen, the prince royal, and so on ; but, with purely wom- 
anly seductiveness, the queen urged the lovely Lady 
Hamilton to take the lead. 

Blushing to precede the queen this time, Emma 
mounted the stairs, and, either with real feeling or well- 
played purpose, on seeing Nelson with an additional 
wound, his brow bound with a black scarf, and white 
with loss of blood, she emitted a scream, lost color her- 


30 Banquo at the Banquet. 

self, and all but swooning, sank on the hero’s bosom, 
murmuring : 

“Oh, great and dear Nelson !” 

Nelson dropped his hat, and with an outcry of glad- 
some amaze, wrapped his remaining arm around her, and 
while upholding her, pressed her to his heart. 

The queen darted a glance at her captain of the royal 
galley, but he did not evince any emotion at this weakness 
of man and woman, the more remarkable as both were 
the supposed unimpassioned English. 

In the profound ecstasy into which Nelson was thrown 
by this unawaited reception, there was an instant for him 
of oblivion of the entire world and ineffable perception 
of the joys of the Mahomedan paradise, if not of the 
Christian’s heaven. 

When he returned to his senses, the king, the queen, 
and the whole court had clambered upon the deck, and the 
welcome was general. 

Ferdinando took him by the hand and greeted him as 
Liberator of the universe; he tendered him a magnificent 
sword, on the hilt of which, by the ribbon of the Order 
of The Merit of San Ferdinand, just organized, hung 
the letters patent making the British victor the Duke of 
Bronte. This was a bit of the queen’s feminine flattery, 
as the title means “the Duke of Thunder.” Bronte was 
one of those three Cyclops (remember. Nelson was now 
one-eyed), who forged Jove’s thunderbolts in the flam- 
ing caves of Mount Aetna. 

Next came the queen, who hailed him as the protector 
of thrones, avenger of kings, and her friend ; she clasped 
the hands of Nelson and Emma and shook them in her 
grasp together. 

In turn came the others — hereditary princes, royal 
princesses, cabinet ministers, courtiers; but what was 


Banquo at the Banquet. 31 

their adulation to the praise of the monarch, and Lady 
Hamilton’s caresses? 

It was agreed that the guest should go ashore in the 
royal galley; with its four-and-twenty rowers, it would 
travel faster than a sailing vessel. But in the first place, 
Emma besought that they might inspect, in the queen’s 
name, this glorious Vanguard, on which French balls 
had inflicted gashes, like the commander’s, not yet closed. 

Nelson did the honors with a seaman’s pride in his 
battleship, and during this visit Lady Hamilton, leaning 
on his arm, drew from him particulars of the action, and 
forced him not to spare himself. 

The king with his own hands girded on him the fine 
sword which had belonged to King Louis XIV. His 
consort handed him the patent of nobility. Emma passed 
the San Ferdinando decoration around his neck, during 
which act her flossy, odoriferous hair floated against his 
powder-specked cheek. 

It was about two in the afternoon, and it took nearly 
three hours to get to Naples. 

Nelson handed over his command to Captain Hardy, 
his flag-captain, and to the crash of guns and the music 
of the band, went down upon the royal barge. Light 
as a sea bird, it sprang from the side of the colossus, and 
gracefully flitted over the waters. 

On his ship, Admiral Caracciolo had to do the honors. 
The Briton and he had met before ; at the Siege of Tou- 
lon, they had together fought the French. Although the 
result of the operation was bad, the Italian’s skill and 
courage had won him the rank of admiral, so that he was 
the peer of Nelson, albeit he had the advantages of birth 
and an illustrious line of three centuries. 

This may explain a shade of coolness in the salutation 
the two naval potentates exchanged, and the marked haste 


32 Banquo at the Banquet. 

with which the Sicilian regained his post of command on 
the quarter-deck. 

The queen pressed Nelson to sit near her under the 
purple awning, alleging that the other parties might do 
as they liked, but that this was their own hero, hers and 
Lady Hamilton’s. Whereupon, the latter, as a matter of 
course, placed herself at the queen’s feet. 

During this time, Sir William Hamilton, as the Dr. 
Pangloss of aristocracy, knowing the history of Naples 
better than its king himself, explained how the Isle of 
Capri, which they were then sailing by, was obtained by 
exchange for Ischia, by Augustus Caesar. The sovereign 
appeared to listen with the utmost attention, but when 
he ended, returned : 

“My dear ambassador, the flight of quails has gone on 
these three days ; if you will join me in going shooting, 
we will hie at them on Capri ! We shall bowl them over 
by hundreds !’’ 

The Englishman, being inborn something of a sports- 
man, and, in fact, owing to that the high credit he held 
with the sovereign, bowed in assent, and withheld for a 
finer occasion a dissertation on Tiberius, his twelve pleas- 
ure-residences, and the probability that the Azure Grotto, 
to the ancients, did not have its present magical hue, but 
owes it to the sea level rising in these two thousand years. 

In this interval, the governors of the four forts of 
Naples kept their spyglasses on the vessels, and par- 
ticularly the royal one, and when they saw it heading 
for the port, they concluded that Nelson must be aboard. 
They ordered an immense salute of one hundred-and-one 
guns, most honorable of all, being the same as that to 
hail the birth of an heir to a crown. 

In a quarter of an hour the thundering ceased, but 
only to begin again when the flotilla, still led by the royal 
barge, entered the military port. 


Banquo at the Banquet. 33 

At the foot of the slope leading up to the palace, the 
court equipages and the British ambassador’s were wait- 
ing; the latter outrivaled the royal turnouts in luxury. 
It had been settled that, on this day, the reigning pair 
should cede their rights to Sir William and his lady, who 
would convey the hero to their residence, and that the 
English representative should give the banquet and fes- 
tival. 

As for the capital, it was to illuminate and give a show 
of fireworks. 

Before landing, Lady Hamilton turned to Admiral 
Caracciolo, and said, with her sweetest voice, and wearing 
her most winning look : 

'‘The gala we are giving our illustrious fellow-country- 
man would be incomplete, if the sole seaman who can pair 
off with him should not join with us all in celebrating 
his victory and drinking the toast to England’s greatness, 
the happiness of the Two Sicilies, and the downfall of 
that arrogant French Republic, which dares to declare 
war against kings. We have set apart the giving of this 
toast to the man who so bravely fought at Toulon !” 

The Italian bowed courteously enough, but quite 
gravely. 

“My lady,” was his answer, “I sincerely regret my in- 
ability to accept the complimentary part preserved for 
me as your guest, but, just as far as the day has been 
fine, so will the night be tempestuous.” 

The lady gave a glance to the sea line. Apart from 
a few clouds, thinly streaking it toward Procida, the sky 
blue was limpid as her eyes. So she smiled. 

“You doubt my words, my lady,” went on the prince; 
“but the man who has passed two parts of his life on 
this capricious sea called the Mediterranean, knows all 
the secrets of the Cave of the Winds. Do you see those 
light films dropping from above, but rapidly bearing down 


34 Banquo at the Banquet. 

on us? They tell that the wind, which stood at north- 
west, is shifting to the west. About ten to-night it will 
blow out of the south, and be what we call the sirocco. 
Naples harbor is open to all winds, and particularly to 
that one. I am bound to see to the anchorage of the 
English vessels, so mauled in the action that they have 
not the solidity to resist a storm. What we have done 
this day, lady, is a fair and square declaration of war 
upon France, and mark ! the French army is at Rome, 
only five days’ march from us ! Believe me, lady, that 
in a very few days we shall need both our fleets to be in 
good fighting trim !” 

Lady Hamilton tossed her head in token of disagree- 
ment, if not of denial. 

“I accept your excuse, prince,” she replied, “since it 
proves such great solicitude for the interests of their 
Britannic and Sicilian majesties. But I do hope, at the 
least, that we shall see your delightful niece, the Lady 
Cecilia, at the ball, for she can have no excuse; she was 
duly notified that we reckoned upon her company as soon 
as we had the word of Nelson’s coming.” 

“That is just what I was going to say to you! During 
the last few days, both my mother and sister-in-law have 
been unwell, and this same morning I received a letter 
from our poor CeciLia, expressing to me all her sorrow 
tnat she will be unable to share in the feast. Besides, 
she charged me to offer her apologies to your ladyship, 
which I have the honor to do !” 

While the Englishwoman and the Italian officer were 
passing these few words, the queen drew near enough to 
hear as well as see, and, comprehending the motive of 
the austere Neapolitan’s double refusal, she frowned, 
her lower lip pouted, and her face was covered with 
pallor. 

“Have a care, prince !” she interjected, in a shrill voice, 


Banquo at the Banquet. 35 

and with a smile as light but as menacing as the herald 
clouds he had pointed out as indicating storm, “beware! 
Those ladies who do not figure at Lady Hamilton's party 
will not be included in the court invitations !” 

“I am very sorry, madam,” Caracciolo responded, with- 
out his serenity appearing in the slightest to be altered 
by this threat, “my poor relative’s indisposition is so seri- 
ous that if the rejoicings given by your majesty to Lord 
Nelson were to last over a month, she could not be pres- 
ent; and consequently, the younger lady to whom she is 
the chaperon cannot go by herself.” 

“Oh, very well, prince,” retorted the queen, incapable 
of governing herself ; “in the proper time and place this 
refusal will be borne in mind !” She took Lady Hamilton 
by the arm, saying : “Come away, my dear Emma.” 

She started off quickly, but muttering: “Oh, these 
Neapolitans ! I know that they hate me, but they lose 
nothing in my returning the compliment. I execrate 
them !” 

But however rapidly she had left the spot, Admiral 
Caracciolo outpaced her, and made a sign to the band. 
The trumpets blared brilliantly, the guns thundered 
anew, the bells again clanged, and, with shame on her 
front, the lovely lady had to walk off to the landing-stage 
under all the tokens of joy and triumph. 

With the royal personages, she and Nelson stepped 
into the first coach ; the Prince and Princess Royal, with 
Sir William and Premier Acton, occupied the next; the 
other vehicles filled up according to regulation. 

They proceeded directly to Santa Clara Church, to hear 
the Te Deum. That over, they went to the English Em- 
bassy, the vastest and handsomest palace in the town. 

The pace had been at a walk, for the streets were jam- 
med with sight-seers. Little accustomed to the noisy and 
superficial demonstrations of southerners, the Briton was 


3 6 Banquo at the Banquet. 

intoxicated by the shouts of “Long life to Nelson ! our 
liberator forever!” They came out of a hundred thou- 
sand throats, while many neckerchiefs waved from in- 
numerable hands. 

Amid the vociferous ovation, one thing could not but 
startle him — the familiarity of the lazzaroni, the beggars 
and idlers, who climbed upon the footboards, driving- 
box and steps, without the coachman, footmen, outriders 
or equerries appearing the least uneasy. They actually 
jerked the king’s queue and all but tweaked his nose, 
hailing him as “King Nosey” ( Nasone ) ! 

They addressed him as “hail, fellow, well met!” and 
asked him when he was going to sell the fish he caught 
at the public mart, and when he would eat macaroni in 
the common way at the playhouse. 

This was far from the exclusiveness of the English 
monarchs and the veneration with which they are sur- 
rounded; yet Ferdinando appeared so pleased by the 
familiarity, retorted so merrily to the quips and gross 
jokes; and even gave such smart fisticuffs to those who 
pulled his pigtail too roughly, that Nelson could see, in 
these buffets and horseplay, the unconstrained outbursts 
of spoiled children, overfond of their father, and a fond 
parent’s over-indulgence toward this progeny. 

At the Embassy gates, however, was fresh tribute to 
the stranger’s pride. 

The archway was transformed into one of triumph, 
surmounted by the new coat-of-arms accorded to the 
Victor of Aboukir Bay, by the King of England, with 
the title of Baron of the Nile and a peerage. The door- 
way was flanked by those tall masts originated in Venice, 
from the top of which floated scarlet streamers bearing 
in gold letters the name “Horatio Nelson.” The sea 
breeze spread them out and let the people gratefully read. 

The stairway was a laureled vault, spangled with 


Banquo at the Banquet. 37 

costly flowers, woven into the monogram of “H. and N.” 
These initials appeared on everything — the liveried serv- 
ants’ buttons, the porcelain service, the very cloths on the 
immense table for eighty guests, laid out in the picture 
gallery. Hidden music, loud enough to lull, but not to 
interfere with chat, mingled with the perfumes. The 
spacious palace, as the abode of Armida the Enchantress, 
to which the Italians likened it, was full of untraceable 
melody and permeating odors. 

As royal etiquette makes royalty at home wherever it 
is, the banquet was served as soon as the two majesties 
were seated. Nelson sat opposite the king, between the 
queen and Lady Hamilton. 

Apicius lived in Naples once ; and, aping him, Sir Wil- 
liam had levied a contribution on all the world’s produc- 
tions. 

Innumerable candles were reflected in the mirrors, can- 
delabras and cut crystal dishes, and filled the grand 
gallery with a light, softer while almost more potent than 
the sun’s on its hottest day. 

Spreading over the gold-broidered coats, the silver- 
ware, the gems in the decorations of knightly orders, 
worn on breast and at the gorge, casting off a myriad 
sparks of all hues, it seemed to surround the royal pair 
and splendid guests with that glory which, to enslaved 
peoples, makes earth’s grandees a race of superior and 
privileged beings. 

To each course was a toast. The king set the example 
by proposing the first to the glorious reign, the cloud- 
less prosperity, and the lengthy life of his beloved cousin 
and august ally, George the Third of England. Counter 
to all usage, the queen had drunk to Nelson’s health as 
liberator of Italy. Following this model, Lady Emma had 
drunk to the hero of the Nile; she passed to the admiral 
her cup, which by touch of her lip was converting the 


38 Banquo at the Banquet. 

wine to flame; and at each round, the cheers frantically 
resounded as though to split the ceiling. 

The dessert was reached with increasing enthusiasm 
when an unexpected occurrence carried it to delirium. 

As the guests were only waiting for the king’s rising 
to be the signal for all to end the feast, he rose, indeed, 
but remained gravely there. Immediately, that full, 
broad and profoundly saddening air, ordered by King 
Louis XIV. to be composed for ex-King James II. exiled 
from Windsor, and the royal guest at St. Germain’s, 
Lulli’s “God Save the King !” burst forth. It was chanted 
by the choicest voices from the Theatre Royal, accompa- 
nied by their orchestra, over a hundred strong. 

Each verse was furiously applauded, and the latest was 
more noisily and longer hailed than the others,' when, 
instead of its being terminated, a pure and sonorous 
voice uttered *a verse, added for the occasion, which we 
give in prose since the words did no honor to Italian 
poetry : 

“Let us all join in hailing the glory of Victory’s favorite, and 
the Terror of the French! The olden land of the Pharaohs sings 
with noble Albion, the proud mother of Nelson : ‘God Save the 
King!”’ 

These bombastic lines brought forth universal accla- 
mation, which was going to swell with the repetition, 
when suddenly all voice died away on the lip, and all 
eyes, appalled, turned toward the doorway as though 
Banquo’s specter was going to invade the gala hall. 

A tall man, with a forbidding mien, stood in the door- 
way, arrayed in that severe yet magnificent costume of 
the dignitaries of the first French Republic. Not a feature 
could be missed, so profusely flooded was he by the light. 
His coat was long-skirted and of dark blue; the blood- 
red waistcoat was broidered with gold ; the white breeches 
were fitted skin-tight and covered with high boots, whose 


Banquo at the Banquet. 39 

tops were turned down. He rested his left hand on his 
sword hilt, and his right was thrust into his bosom. Un- 
pardonable impudence! his head was surmounted by the 
three-cocked hat, on which floated the bunch of the three 
feathers, red, white and blue, emblem of the Revolution, 
which was to raise the mass to the level of the throne, and 
debase royalty to the scaffold. 

This was the ambassador of France, the identical 
Garat who, in the name of the National Convention, had, 
in the Temple Prison, read the death warrant to King 
Louis XVI. 

The reader may judge the effect of such an intruder at 
such a time and place. 

Amid a deathly hush, none thinking to break it, he said, 
in a steady, ringing and far-sounding voice : 

“I doubted still, despite the incessantly renewed acts 
of treachery by the lying Court known as the Two Sici- 
lies, wishing to see with mine own eyes, and hear with 
mine own ears ! I see, and I hear ! More straightfor- 
ward than that Roman who, in a fold of his toga, bore 
to the Carthaginian Senate peace or war — I bring ye 
solely war, for you have this day expelled peace. 

“Therefore, King Ferdinando, and Queen Carolina, it 
is war, since you would have it ! A war, mark you, of 
extermination, in which you will be bereft, I warn ye, of 
throne and existence ! in the teeth of the hero of this 
feast and the impious power which he represents. Fare- 
well ! I leave Naples, abode of perjury! Shut the gates 
behind me ; gather your warriors behind the walls ; load 
your ramparts with cannon ; collect your fleets in your 
havens; you can but delay the vengeance of France! it 
will come inevitably and no less fearfully ! for all gives 
way to the march of the grand nation whose cry sets the 
world echoing : 

fi ‘The Republic forever ! ’ ” 


CHAPTER V. 


THE KING AND THE QUEEN. 

The modern Balthazar and his dread-filled guests were 
left spellbound by the three mystic words, resounding 
overhead, while they seemed also to see them flaming on 
the wall by the harbinger of liberty. He had come, like 
the antique herald, to fling the dart, promising war be- 
fore slowly departing, his saber tip clanking on the marble 
stairs. 

To this martial sound, barely dying out, succeeded the 
whirr of post-chaise wheels flying hence at the gallop 
of four fleet horses. 

The King Charles III. of Spain, who reigned at Na- 
ples, had three sons. 

Of them the third was left with the crown, which his 
sire had conquered with the sword, but still was forced 
to abandon it. 

This young prince was aged but seven, and was under 
a double tutorship, moral and political. The political in- 
structor was the Regent Tanucci, a fine and wily Floren- 
tine; the moral one, Prince San Nicandro, his preceptor. 

The latter tried to make his pupil an ignoramus, with 
the approval of the intelligent regent, wishing to reign 
all the time. This was the more easy as San Nicandro 
knew nothing himself and could not very well impart in- 
formation. After having removed all light from his path, 
he led Ferdinando into his father’s tastes; King Carlo 
having been an inveterate hunter. If he were tired of 
shooting, coursing or sparrow-popping, he taught him 
the tranquil and commonplace pursuit of fishing as a rest. 


The King and the Queen. 41 

As Ferdinando was naturally mild and kind, this double 
vice, from the instructor’s point of view, was corrected. 
Yet he preserved some good sense which led him into the 
right course now and then. 

But the sovereign’s life has to be divided into two 
periods ; before and after the French Revolution ; in other 
words, each side of 1798. 

Anterior, he was a plain, good soul, rather inclined to 
goodness than evil. 

Subsequently, he is the man we see : apprehensive, im- 
placable, mistrustful and more prone to wickedness than 
good. 

It was an odd character ; native wit, no education, heed- 
lessness as to glory, dread of danger, no feelings, no 
heart, permanent luxuriousness, perjury established as a 
principle, worship of royal power carried as far as in 
Louis XIV., cynicism about private or political life shown 
broadly by his deep scorn for the flatterers and parasites 
around him, seeing in the great nobles merely courtiers. 
He regarded the people as slaves to be trodden upon. 

By these traits, you may weigh the man who stepped 
on the throne at the same youthtime as Louis XIV., dying 
at almost his age, too, reigning sixty-six years, from 1759 
to 1825, including the minority. 

Now, for his consort. 

Maria Carolina, Archduchess of Austria, had left 
Vienna, in April, 1768, to marry Ferdinando at Naples. 

She was just sixteen, but this favorite daughter of 
Maria Theresa was precocious ; she was literate more than 
taught; she was philosophical; but she could hate those 
who also loved wisdom. 

She was fair and could be winning. Her hair was 
gleaming as if dusted with gold; her broad forehead 
was without the furrows of the hatreds, cares and en- 
mities flourishing about the throne. Her eyes could dis- 


42 The King and the Queen. 

pute in tone with that blue of the skies whereunder she 
was fated to reign. Her profile was Grecian from the 
straight nose and the slightly sharp chin, token of abso- 
lute will. Her face was oval, her lips high-colored and 
her teeth ivory white. 

Neck, bust and shoulders were like the finest statues 
found in Pompeii or brought from Rome to her palace. 
Thirty years following, as we have stated, she enjoyed 
this beauty. 

She was haughty and lofty, as became an empress’ 
daughter; she loved luxury, command and power. 

She arrived with Germanic dreams into the happy land 
of Tasso and Virgil to meet a boy bridegroom of ten 
years. Coming of a great race, he should be fair, brave 
and graceful. Instead of her juvenile fancy and poetic 
dream was a youth with a large nose, thick ankles, coarse 
hands, and a mouth fit for speaking the jargon of the 
Naples Mole with its appropriate gestures. 

As Prime Minister Tanucci wished neither king nor 
queen to oust him. He eyed her jealously and was de- 
lighted that her superiority humbled his ward and that 
Ferdinando’s coarseness repelled her. 

It was plain that two characters so opposed could not 
dwell on good terms. 

It was Ferdinando’s rudeness which kept widening the 
breach. In one of their quarrels, he bade her leave the 
room, emphasizing his order with a movement of the 
lifted foot which looked like a kick to the witnesses, 
though unused to seeing that argumentum ad backulatum 
applied by the royal boot to a royal petticoat. Another 
time he gave her a box on the ear so noisily that the 
echo was heard outside the palace. The queen flew to 
her rooms; but however much she protested that all was 
over between them, she had to open the door, and they 
patched up peace. 


The King and the Queen. 43 

In fact, the overturning of things aristocratic in France 
made pantomimic kicks and slaps, petty mockeries. If 
the effect was deep on Ferdinando, it was terribly more so 
on Carolina. 

The man was simply selfish and was made to remem- 
ber his position, and while he felt utter indifference about 
the fate of Louis and Marie Antoinette, whom he had 
never seen, he was alarmed about the same fate befalling 
him. 

In the woman it was a deadly blow to her family affec- 
tion. She adored her mother, sister and brothers — every- 
thing Austrian, in short, for which she had sacrificed 
Naples at any time. Her royal pride was mortally 
wounded, not so much by the mere doom, as its ignominy. 
Her most ardent hate was aroused by this odious French 
people, who not only treated kings and queens thus 
meanly, but royalty itself. It brought to her lips such a 
vow against France as young Hannibal framed against 
Rome. 

On learning of the deaths of King Louis and his 
queen, Carolina went almost mad with rage. In this ire 
against the French the two were alike, except that the 
king’s was sluggish, and hers active. He wanted to keep 
the regicides afar — she to bring them near for their de- 
struction. 

With time, patience and stubbornness, Carolina had 
reached the end she proposed. 

With the hope of taking part in some coalition against 
France, or to wage war independently, she induced the 
premier, Acton, to raise an army, build a fleet and have 
all ready to open fire at the king’s command. 

Valuing aright the impotence of the native generals, 
who had never fought a pitched battle, and the soldiers, 
who knew their incapacity as well, she sued her nephew, 
the Emperor of Austria, for one of his generals. This 


44 The King and the Queen. 

Mack passed for the foremost of strategists, though his 
record was for failures. He was expected in Naples at 
any moment. 

At this juncture, when Bonaparte was sequestered in 
Egypt, and the victor over him at Aboukir arrived at 
Naples with his fleet, she was given great and savage 
joy by the certainty that with her Circe, Lady Hamilton, 
she could make Nelson her ally in her hatred, and ac- 
complice in her revenge. Such delights are only known 
to hearts in such mourning and desperation. 

In this mood, the French envoy’s declaration of war, 
far from daunting her, had, on the contrary, rung in 
her ears like the bronze clang sounding the long-looked- 
for hour of deliverance. 

This was not the case with the king. He was so badly 
impressed by the defiance that he passed a very poor 
night. But for recreation he gave orders that he would 
go hunting on the morrow. 


CHAPTER VI. 


IN THE LIGHT. 

It was close to two in the morning, when the royal 
pair, quitting the English Embassy, returned to the 
palace. 

Deeply absorbed in the incident, the king went imme- 
diately to his quarters, to which his partner made no ob- 
jection, as she was fully as eager to be alone in her own. 

The sovereign did not hide the reality of the crisis, and 
in such dilemmas there was one man whom he truthfully 
consulted, as this adviser was of good counsel. He recog- 
nized in him superiority over the throng of courtiers. 
This was Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo. 

Ruffo had assisted his dean, the Archbishop of Naples, 
in the Te Deum in honor of Nelson. He had been at the 
Hamilton supper, where he had seen and heard all, and 
the king, in passing out, had said : 

“I expect you to-night at the palace.” 

Ruffo had bowed to acknowledge the invitation. In- 
deed, scarcely ten minutes after the monarch had returned 
and bade the usher to let in the churchman, the latter 
was announced. 

“Show his eminence in!” exclaimed the king, loudly, 
for the arrival to overhear him; “I should really think 
that it will please me to see him !” 

Thus invited by the welcome, the dignitary did not 
wait for the usher, but responded by his presence to the 
pressing call. 

“Well, what does your eminence say to what has oc- 


4 6 In the Light. 

curred?” inquired the ruler, dropping into an easy-chair 
and nodding for the other to be seated also. 

Knowing that the greatest reverence to exalted per- 
sonages is to obey their orders instantly, their invitations 
being commands, he took a seat. 

“I say that this is a grave matter,” was his reply. 
“Happily, your majesty has done all this for English 
honor, and it is for English honor to uphold your maj- 
esty.” 

“What do you think, at bottom, of this English bull- 
dog, Nelson? Be frank, cardinal.” 

“Your majesty is so kind to me that I am always 
frank. As for bravery, he is a lion ; for military instinct, 
a genius ; but for brains, a mediocre spirit, luckily !” 

“Luckily? Why do you say that?” 

“Because he can be guided in any direction by the two 
reins to the bridle.” 

“What are they?” 

“Love and ambition. Love falls into Lady Hamilton's 
province ; the other is your line. His birth is vulgar and 
h . has no education. He has conquered his grades with- 
out stepping into a royal antechamber. Treat such an 
upstart like a great nobleman, and you will intoxicate 
him. At that stage, your majesty can do as he wills 
with him. Can one rely on Lady Hamilton?” 

“The queen always says that she can.” 

“Then you need no other assurance. Through that 
woman you can sway all ; she will bring her swain over 
as she has her husband — they are both, then, for royalty — 
of the Two Sicilies. The diplomate and the seaman are 
both infatuated with her.” 

“I am afraid she will play the prude.” 

“Lady Hamilton?” with the greatest astonishment. 
“Your majesty cannot imagine that!” 

“Oh, I do not mean a prude's prudery. Do you see, 


47 


In the Light. 

our Nelson is not handsome, with one arm gone, an eye 
blinded, and his forehead scarred. If that is the price to 
pay for heroism, it is not the sauce for my macaroni !” 

“Pooh ! Women have odd notions ! And, anyway, 
Lady Hamilton is so fond of the queen! If there is no 
love in the matter, there is friendship to move her.” 

“Let it pass !” said the king, like one who turns the 
riddle over to Providence as too difficult. “But you must 
have some advice to give me in this puzzle.” 

“Certainly; the only reasonable course. Your majesty 
has a treaty of alliance with Cousin Austria?” 

“I have treaties of alliance with everybody. That is 
what tangles me up so.” 

“But it is stated that for the next coalition you are 
to furnish so many troops?” 

“Thirty thousand.” 

“And combine your movements with Austria and 
Russia ?” 

“That’s settled.” 

“Well, sire, whatever the pressure set upon you, do not 
enter into the campaign until the Russians and Austrians 
are themselves in the field.” 

“My intention, by Jove! Your eminence understands 
that I am not going to have all the fun of fighting these 
regicides to myself. But, suppose France does not wait 
for our coalition? In short, she has already opened war 
on me!” 

“I believe, from my friends at Rome, that she is not in 
shape to open war on anybody farther ” 

“Eh ! that consoles me no little.” 

“Now, if your majesty will allow a second piece of 
advice. I was asked for only one, but this is a conse- 
quence of the former. In your majesty’s place, I should 
write to my nephew, the emperor, to learn from him, not 


48 In the Light. 

diplomatically but confidentially, when he means to set his 
men in the field, and by his reply, regulate my moves.” 

“Your eminence is right; and I will write to him 
straightway.” 

“Have you a sure carrier?” 

“My private courier, Ferrari.” 

“But is he sure, sure, sure?” 

“Hello, cardinal! you want a man thrice sure, when 
it is hard to find a man sure once ! I believe him more 
sure than the most. He has given me abundant proofs 
of his fidelity.” 

“Where would he be?” 

“Where he should be; resting somewhere in the outer 
rooms, booted and spurred, to be ready to start at the 
first order, at any hour of the night or day.” 

“Let the writing be done first ; then we will look him 
up.” 

“It is easy for your eminence to talk of writing; but 
where the mischief am I to find writing materials in a 
palace and at this unearthly hour?” 

“The Scriptures say : ‘Seek and ye shall find ’ ” 

“Thanks for sparing me the Latin — something like 
‘Queer eye and in Venice,’ eh?” 

The religious prince did not laugh while the king went 
to a desk and rummaged all the drawers without finding 
anything. 

“The Scriptures are out !” he remarked, falling into his 
chair disconsolately. “And a good thing, too, for I de- 
test writing!” sighed he. 

“Yet your majesty was resolved to do it this night?” 

“No doubt! but nothing is handy, you see! I should 
have to knock up a secretary or some such functionary, 
and he would be sulky ! You must see that where a king 
is no author, there would be no writing tools. Of course, 
one could get all the requisites of the queen. She is a 


49 


In the Light. 

scribbler and no mistake! But if it got wind that I, a 
king who does not write, was writing, it would be be- 
lieved that the realm was in danger ! ‘The king wrote a 
letter!’ To whom?’ ‘That’s telling!’ ‘Oh, oh!’ It 
would be an event to upset the palace !” 

“Sire, it falls to me to find what evades your majesty.” 

“How do you know to find things here?” 

Ruffo bowed to his master and withdrew, but in a 
minute returned, carrying some paper, a bottle of ink and 
a few quills. The king stared at him with admiration. 

“Where the deuce did you find all that?” he wanted to 
know. 

“In a room where the ushers wait for orders.” 

“But I forbade the rogues having pens and ink all over 
the place !” 

“They keep the things to put down the names of the 
callers. You never were offended by the sight, as they 
were hidden in a cupboard, where I routed them out, so 
that we have all that is needed for your wishes.” 

“You are the man for a pinch ! Apropos, have a pinch 
out of my box, cardinal ! Ha, ha ! But, your eminence, 
is it absolutely necessary,” he went on, snuffing dolefully, 
“that the letter should be in mine own hand?” 

“It would be better, since it would look more confi- 
dential.” 

“Then, dictate — yes, dictate, I tell you, or otherwise 
I should be two hours over half a page! Ah, my bless- 
ings, backward, on that confounded San Nicandro, for 
having made me such a noodle!” 

The churchman dipped a pen in the ink and offered it 
to his pupil. Bowing, he set to his task : 

“Most Excellent Brother, Cousin, Nephew, Ally 
and Confederate: I am bound to inform you without 
delay what happened last night at the English Embassy 
here. Lord Nelson, touching at Naples, on return from 


In the Light. 

Aboukir Bay, and Sir William Hamilton giving bis 
fellow-countryman a reception, Citizen Garat, minister of 
the French Republic, snatched at the chance to declare 
war on me for his government. 

“By return of this same messenger bearing this, most 
excellent brother, etc., etc., let me know your arrange- 
ments about the coming war, and particularly the precise 
time when you reckon to go into the field, as I wish to do 
nothing without utter concord with you. I await your 
reply in order to regulate my movement in every point by 
your instructions. These presents have no other aim 
than to wish you all kinds of prosperity. Believe me, 

“Your majesty’s good brother, cousin, uncle, ally and 
confederate.” 

“Temple of Jerusalem! That is a mouthful!” ejacu- 
lated the secretary, despite himself. He looked up ques- 
tioningly. 

“Well, it’s done and your majesty has only to sign.” 

The usual sign-manual went down : “Ferdinando, B. 
(Bourbon).” 

“Bless us ! just think that I should, alone, have lost the 
whole night hammering out such an epistle. Thank you, 
dear cardinal !” He looked around wistfully. “Anything 
like an envelope ?” 

“Pho! we’ll make one,” replied Ruffo, at ease. 

“You can? Now that is another art that block, San 
Nicandro, failed to teach me. Still, as he omitted teach- 
ing me to write letters, he must have thought that to make 
envelopes for them was superfluous !” 

Ruffo took a sheet of paper, and by tearing and fold- 
ing it made an inclosure for the royal missive. The other 
watched him with wonde.* and approval. 

“Can your majesty oblige me with the privy seal?” 

“I will give it you — do not disturb yourself!” 

The letter being sealed up, the king scratched the ad- 
dress on it. 


In the Light. 51 

“I should not like anybody to know that I wrote to my 
nephew or by whom it was carried,” the king mused, audi- 
bly, holding his chin in his hand. 

“You might have me stabbed as I leave the palace/’ 
hinted Ruffo, merrily. 

“Oh, you do not count in that way; you are another. 
Myself, since you have been dictator! You need not 
thank me — the joke is spontaneous.” 

“But we must get at Ferrari by some hand.” 

“Oh, we’ll find him somehow.” 

“If I had a hint as to his lying-place, I would go turn 
him out !” 

“I could do that, and would, if I knew !” 

“You said he was unde- this roof?” 

“Well, it is a wide roof! Wait, wait! I am not such 
a fool as I look!” 

He opened the door of his sleeping-room and whistled. 
A retriever dog bounded up from the carpet where he 
crouched, next to his master’s bed, and ran to rise with 
his forepaws on the king’s breast, rattling the badges, 
stars and plaques, to say nothing of his licking his chin, 
in which the master seemed to feel as much pleasure as 
the animal. 

“Ferrari read this dog; so he can find his trainer every 
time!” explained the monarch. Changing his voice and 
speaking to the creature as to a child, he continued : 
“Where is our poor Ferrari, Jupiter? We must seek our 
poor Ferrari ! Seek him, good boy !” 

Jupiter appeared to completely understand, for he 
leaped two or three times in the room, sniffing and point- 
ing, while yelping joyously at having something to do 
which limited man is at a loss to accomplish ; finally, he 
went and scratched at a secret door. 

“Aha, we shall light upon him, eh?” said the king, 


52 


In the Light. 

lighting a candle at the main luster, and opening the 
passage door, while saying: “Set to, boy! seek him!” 

The king followed the dog and the cardinal the king, 
not wishing to be left alone, and also to quench his 
curiosity. Jupiter had run to the end of the passage, 
where there was a second door to scratch at. 

“So, so, we are on the right track, eh, Jupiter?” ques- 
tioned the master. 

He opened the second door, which opened on an empty 
waiting-room. Jupiter found another door here and rose 
up against it. 

“We are getting on fine !” chuckled the sporting sover- 
eign. “We burn !” he added to the follower. He opened 
the third panel. 

It gave issue to a staircase, up which Jupiter flew a 
score of steps, where he accompanied the inevitable 
scratching with short yelps. 

“ Zitto /” (hist) said the leader, opening this fourth 
door cautiously ; it was the last, since they had arrived at 
the termination of their quest; a man, equipped for rid- 
ing, was sleeping on a camp-bed. 

“Bravo !” exclaimed the king, proud of the dog’s intel- 
ligence; “just make a note of it that not one of my min- 
isters, including the chief of police, could do what that 
hound has done!” 

Thwarting the impulse of Jupiter to jump upon his 
trainer’s couch, the king made the sign for him to 
“down!” and he stopped still before him. Ferdinando 
went up to the slumberer and touched him on the shoul- 
der with the finger-tips. Light as was the pressure, the 
latter immediately awoke, staring about him with the 
startled gaze of one aroused in the midst of his first sleep. 
But instantly recognizing the master, he rose from the 
bed and stood up, with his elbows held close, to receive 
orders. 


In the Light. 53 

“Could you start right off?” demanded the king. 

“Right off, sire !” 

“Could you go as far as Vienna without stopping?” 

“Farther !” 

“How many days do you require to get there?” 

“On the last trip, I did it in five days and a night to 
boot ; but I noticed how I could get along faster and save 
twelve hours.” 

“Once at Vienna, how long does it take to recuperate ?” 

“No longer than it will take the receiver of your 
majesty’s note to write the answer.” 

“Then, you might be home in twelve days?” 

“Bar accidents, and if the person does not keep me 
waiting.” 

“Hie down to the stables and saddle a horse for your- 
self ; ride him as far as you can. Leave him at any post- 
ing house and retake him on your return. You are to 
tell no one whither you go! And you are to let no one 
— not even the queen — see the reply.” 

“It is good, sire !” 

“None but the emperor is to receive the letter.” 

“Nobody else !” 

“Have you any money?” 

“Always.” 

“Here’s the letter. Whip, start, go!” 

The honest fellow took the letter, slipped it into an 
inner leather pocket of his vest, stuck under his arm a 
packet of necessaries for traveling, and donned his riding- 
cap. Without anything further, he started to go down 
the back stairs. 

“Are you not going to say good-by to Jupiter?” in- 
quired the king. 

“I did not think it allowed,” responded the courier. 

“Not when you are two old friends and both in my 
service?” 


54 In the Light. 

The man and the dog exchanged caresses, and the man, 
wiping away a tear, almost tumbled downstairs to make 
up for the lost time. 

“I am sorely blundering, sire, but that is a man who 
would die for your sake at your bidding,” remarked the 
cardinal. 

“I believe the same, and I shall try to reward him 
handsomely.” 

The two returned to the royal sitting-room by the way 
they had traversed, closing all the doors as they went 
through. In the antechamber, a footman was waiting 
with a letter from the queen. 

“Whew! it’s three o'clock!” ejaculated Ferdinando, 
looking at the timepiece. “This must be of importance.” 

“Sire, the queen saw that your apartments were lighted 
and she reasoned that your majesty had not retired.” 

The sovereign opened the letter with the repugnance 
he always showed for her communications. 

“Plague on it! this is amusing!” said he, at the first 
lines; “here goes my hunting party to the Greek kalends , 
whoever they are ! This note, cardinal, announces that 
as the feast is over and on account of important intelli- 
gence, Captain-General Acton and the queen have deter- 
mined on holding an extraordinary council this very day ! 
All the good that is above fall on Signor Acton and his 
advisee! Do I ever pester them? I do not mind what 
they do, if they will only let me be tranquil.” 

“Sire,” observed the cardinal, “this time I am obliged 
to hold with the queen and her chief counselor, for an 
extraordinary council appears to me of the utmost neces- 
sity, and the sooner it is held the better.” 

“They shall hold it, but you shall be at the board !” 

“I, my lord? I have no right to be at the state 
council !” 

“But I have the right to give you the privilege!” 


In the Light. 55 

“I accept,” answered the prelate, bowing; “the others 
will bring their wits and I my devotedness.” 

“That’s well.” To the messenger : “Tell the queen 
that I shall open the council at the hour — ten, it is stated.” 
He turned to the churchman, who bowed to imply that he 
heard the appointment. 

The footman disappeared and the high priest was about 
to do likewise when they heard the gallop of a horse 
passing under the archway of the building. The king 
took his privy counselor by the hand, saying : 

“In any case, we have got Ferrari safe away! Emi- 
nence, you will be informed among the first of my 
nephew’s response. Good-night ! They will have to look 
out for squalls at the meeting, for the queen and her 
understrapper will find that I am not in a good humor !” 

“Pooh !” replied the other, laughing, “you’ll feel better 
when you have slept on it !” 

Going into his bedroom, the king rang his bell as if to 
crack it. The gentleman in night-waiting ran, thinking 
h's master had gone mad. 

“I am going to bed,” roared the king, thunderously. 
“Another time, take care to shut my blinds and draw the 
curtains! for I do not want all the night watchers to see 
that my lights are burning up to three in the morning !” 

Let us learn what went on in the queen’s camera os- 
cura after having known what occurred in the king’s 
camera lucida at the same time. 


CHAPTER VII. 


IN THE DARK. 

The queen had no more than entered within her suite, 
than Acton sent in to say that he had two pieces of news 
to acquaint her with ; but it was clear that he was not ex- 
pected or was not the only person expected, since she 
rather tartly remarked: 

‘‘Very well ! let Lord Acton wait in the drawing-room ; 
as soon as I am free I shall see him/’ 

Acton was used to such fits of sulkiness. It was a long 
time since he had been reckoned of this new Elizabeth 
the Essex or Leicester ; he was nominally the queen’s gal- 
lant, but whether she had other gallants or not, she cer- 
tainly had other advisers. It was a political tie leashed 
them now. Acton needed her influence over the ruler to 
retain his office; and the lady, for her ability to please 
or to gain revenge, equally passionate for either, wanted 
his genius in plotting and endless complaisance too, as he 
would bear all for her sake. 

The queen was divested rapidly of her court dress, 
flowers, diamonds and ornaments; she scaled off the 
rouge with which princesses besmeared their cheeks in 
those days, drew on a long, full dressing-gown of white, 
and taking a taper, went into a lonesome corridor. At 
its end she reached an isolated chamber, severely fur- 
nished, communicating with outdoors by a secret passage, 
of which she had one key, and her sbirri (spirit, in the 
sense of familiar demon), Pasquale di Simone, another. 

In daytime, windows of this room were sealed up so 
that not the faintest ray of light could penetrate. Over 


In the Dark. 


57 

the center of the table was clamped down a bronze lamp, 
with a shade so arranged that it concentrated all the 
beams upon the board and left the rest of the room in 
darkness. 

Those who had complaints to make were heard here. 
If the denouncers, despite the gloom thickening in the 
hall, dreaded recognition, they might wear masks or 
clothe themselves in the outer room with one of those 
long gowns in which penitent monks accompany con- 
demned prisoners to the gallows or their bodies to the pit 
— gowns which converted a man into a phantom, for all 
that was seen of the wearer was through the apertures 
for looking out, resembling the gaps in a skull. 

At this table were three inquisitors, who had acquired 
enough ghastly notoriety to make their names tolerably 
lasting. They were Castelcicala, the foreign minister; 
Guidobaldi, vice-president of the Junta, sitting in per- 
manency these four years; and the fiscal proctor, Vanni. 

The latter had been recently made a marquis by the 
queen, in recompense for his special services. 

But this night, the board was deserted, the lamp unlit 
and the room lonely. The only living thing — that is, with 
a semblance of life — was the clock, which, with its mo- 
notonous ticking and shrill striking, troubled the funereal 
silence apparently dripping off the ceiling and weighing 
upon the air. 

The shadows reigning everlastingly in this hall, thick- 
ened the air, and one entering felt that he breathed an- 
other atmosphere, difficult to bear. 

The people, noticing that the room windows were al- 
ways closed, called it the dark room (camera oscura). 

From the vague rumors escaping from it, the people, 
with their characteristic instinct of guesswork, as if 
catching a glimpse of what happened, spoke the most of 
it, but after all was considered, feared it the least, since 


In the Dark. 


58 

the deadly darkness hid no thunderbolts for them, and its 
decrees passed over the lowly to smite higher heads. 

At the moment when the queen entered, pale and 
illumined, like Lady Macbeth, solely by the candle she 
carried, the clock escapement whirred as it does before 
the hour is struck, and the gong sounded half-after two. 

The chamber was empty, but she must have expected a 
tenant, since she showed astonishment. She hesitated to 
advance ; but soon overcoming the start at the clock strik- 
ing, she peered into the corners, and slowly and thought- 
fully moved toward the table. It was covered with papers 
like a judge’s desk, and triply offered writing materials. 

The intruder listlessly turned over the papers; her 
eyes scanned without reading; her ears were strained to 
catch the least noise; but her mind was wandering far 
from its seat. In another instant, unable to contain her 
impatience, she sprang up, hastened to the secret en- 
trance door, pressed her ear to it and listened. 

In a few moments she heard a key grating in the lock 
without, and muttered, eagerly: 

“At last!” 

She opened the door on a dark passage and chal- 
lenged : 

“Is that you, Pasquale?” 

“Ay, your majesty!” was replied by a man’s voice be- 
low stairs. 

“You come very late!” she said, reproachfully, regain- 
ing her seat with a gloomy mien and frowning brow. 

“By my faith, it’s a wonder I come at all !” replied the 
fellow upraided for lacking diligence. The voice sounded 
nearer. 

“Why should you not have come at all?” 

“Because it was a tough job,” answered the speaker, 
finally appearing at the doorway. 

This man was of the tribe of human ferrets — useful, 


In the Dark. 


59 

when one could hold him subjective, but fierce in his free 
course. 

“Did you do it, though?” 

“Yes, lady, thanks to Heaven and my patron saint, we 
did it and did it prime! but it cost dear!” 

While explaining, he laid on an armchair a cloak con- 
taining some articles sending out a metallic ring at the 
contact with solidity. The queen watched this with a 
mingling of disgust and curiosity. 

“What’s the loss, my dear man?” 

“One killed outright and three fitted for the bier — no 
less !” 

“No matter ; a pension to the widow and reward to the 
wounded.” 

The bravo bowed his thanks. 

“Then the spy was with a band ?” 

“No, lady; he was all alone; but he was a lion; I had 
to fling my knife at him from ten paces — had I closed 
in, I should have been paid out like the boys. But that 
keeled him over !” 

“Did you have to wrest away his papers by force?” 

“Nay; for he was dead, then. It was easy!” 

“Ah!” sighed the queen, shuddering a little. “You 
were obliged to k — kill him?” 

“Hang it all ; it was kill him or be killed. I thought he 
might stand us off and get up a wrangle which would 
bring a crowd about us, but when I asked if he were the 
French go-between he asserted that he did go two roads 
about. Says he : T am your man !’ and he dropped two 
of my boys with his pair of pistols. Then, two down, 
t’others come on ! He laid another brace low with a slash 
of his sword. He was one of those plucky lads who did 
not care to lie.” 

The hearer frowned to hear the murderer eulogize a 

victim. 


6o 


In the Dark. 


“Being slain, what did you do with ” 

“The corpus ? A patrol was coming up, and so we left 
him, having enough to do to carry off those of ours who 
were not stiffening like him.” 

“Bungler ! he will be recognized !” 

“What by — what as? I don’t know that he was a 
Frenchman because he worked for the French; he spoke 
Italian fairly and under his cloak, which I took as a 
trophy, he was clad like any not the gentry. The cloak 
itself is so much better cloth than his under duds that I 
should bet he borrowed that. Oh, these secret messengers 
are a bit of the highwayman, or they could not get over 
the road. I ought to know, for I have done a trifle in that 
line myself. Well, here’s the cloak, his or his neighbor’s, 
his sword, which is military, and his firearms. He 
handled them deftly, I answer for that ! As for his 
charge, here is a wallet and a letter which stuck to it with 
his blood.” 

He threw upon the table a morocco pocketbook, dyed 
redder than its original tint; a portion of a letter was 
glued, indeed, to it. The cutthroat tore them asunder 
carelessly and laid them apart. The queen stretched out 
her hand toward them; but no doubt she hesitated to 
touch the ensanguined prize, for, stopping halfway, she 
inquired : 

“How could he be disguised, since our information said 
that he was a soldier and would be in uniform? How- 
ever, the papers in that letter-vase ought to remove any 
doubts.” 

Pasquale seemed sure of his mark. He shrugged his 
shoulders while his mistress took up the pocketbook, 
though the fresh blood dyed her glove tips, and opening 
it, found a letter within, bearing this superscription : 

“To Citizen Garat, Ambassador of the French Re- 
public at Naples/' 


In the Dark. 


6 1 


The seal bore the arms of the Republic, but breaking it, 
she opened the missive and uttered an outcry of glee 
over the first lines she read. This gladness increased 
as she progressed in her reading, and when she had 
ended, she said : 

“Pasquale, you are a precious fellow, and I shall make 
your fortune!” 

“Your majesty has been a long time promising that!” 
retorted the sbirri. 

“Rest easy now about my keeping my word ; but, in the 
meanwhile, here is something on account.” 

She put a scrap of paper under her hand and scrawled 
a few words. It was an order on the treasury for a thou- 
sand ducats. 

“Half for you — half for your men.” 

“Bless you majesty !” said the bravo , blowing on the 
ink to dry it before he folded up the paper and pocketed 
it; “but before I leave your majesty, I ought to say that 
the question rises whether that soldier shifted his uniform 
for plain clothes and borrowed that fashionable cloak in 
or out of town. He may have been the bearer of other 
letters and I should like to know where he delivered the 
rest of the budget.” 

“It is just what I thought of, too, my dear Pasquale. 
Have you any suspicions as to those who keep up com- 
munications with the French?” 

“Hazy yet ; but I hope to verify them pretty soon. I 
posted some lookouts on the seashore road, with orders 
to meet me at the Giants’ Statue, where, if your majesty 
will give me leave, I will run and meet them.” 

“You cannot do better. If they are there, bring them 
to me, for I should like to learn about those friendly to 
the Jacobins under our eaves.” 

Di Simone disappeared in the corridor, his steps being 
heard fainter and fainter as he went down the stone slabs, 


62 


In the Dark. 


Remaining alone, the illustrious inquisitress glanced 
vaguely over the board when she spied the second paper, 
which the man had treated as a mere rag, apart from the 
wallet to which its defender’s blood had cemented it. In 
her desire to read the official dispatch to the French en- 
voy, and in her satisfaction over it, she had forgotten it. 

It was a note written on fine paper; in a thin, dainty 
and aristocratic hand, feminine; by the first words the 
queen recognized a love letter. It commenced with the 
word : 

“Caro!” 

Unfortunately for the inquirer, the blood had almost 
wholly spread over the written page. One could only 
make out the date, twentieth of September, and read the 
regrets of the writer that she could not keep an appoint- 
ment since she was obliged to stay with the queen during 
the reception of Admiral Nelson. The only signature was 
one letter, an E. 

The reader was completely bewildered. 

Such an epistle, addressed to a Caracciolo, could not 
be found on a courier with advices from the French gen- 
eral, Championnet, commanding at Rome, with a dis- 
patch to Ambassador Garat. She reflected that the wily 
Pasquale was no doubt correct in assuming that the mes- 
senger ha'd disguised himself and been loaned a cloak 
which contained the amorous epistle, conjoined to it by 
hazard of the assassin’s knife. 

She rose and went to examine the spoil of the hire- 
lings. The cloak was simply a well-made over-garment 
worn by any gentleman of the city. The saber was the 
French regulation one, she believed ; but the pistols were 
not only stylish but must have come from the Royal 
Armory in Naples ; on a shield was engraved a “C.” 

The investigatress put aside the firearms with the let- 
ter as affording a clew. 


In the Dark. 


63 

As Di Simone did not return and was probably toasting 
the bounty, she locked up the cloak and sword in a closet 
and took the letter, dispatch and wallet with her to her 
own rooms. Acton was still waiting. 

Shutting up the wallet and pistols in a drawer of her 
secretary, and only keeping the letter, she entered the 
drawing-room. On seeing her, the minister rose and 
bowed without evincing any chafing at having been made 
to wait. She went up to him. 

“You are something of a chemist, eh?” she demanded. 

“I have some laboratory knowledge, if I am not a 
chemist in the full sense,” was his answer. 

“Do you think that the blood can be extracted from this 
letter without effacing the ink?” 

Acton looked at the fouled page and was gloomy. 

“Lady mine,” said he, “for the terror and chastisement 
of those who shed it, Providence has set it that blood 
leaves blots the least rapidly sponged out. If this be a 
common ink, composed of a plain color and a mordant, 
the operation will be difficult, for the chloride of potas- 
sium, in eradicating the blood, would injure the ink; but 
if, on the contrary, which is not likely, the ink con- 
tains nitrate of silver, or bone black and gum, a solution 
of hyperchlorate of lime will remove the stain without 
affecting the ink.” 

“That is all very well, but do your best; it is highly 
important that I should know the contents of that writing. 
But you stated that you had serious news to communi- 
cate? I am waiting, sir.” 

“General Mack arrived while we were jubilating, and 
as I invited him, he was set down at my house, where I 
found him when I got home.” 

“He is welcome, and I believe Heaven is on our side. 
What other news ?” 

“Not less weighty. After the warrior, the sinews of 


In the Dark. 


6 4 

war ! I managed to exchange a few words with Admiral 
Nelson and he is about procuring the money, as much as 
your majesty desires.” 

“Thank you ; that completes the series of boons.” 

Going to the window, she parted the curtains, and gave 
a glance at the royal windows. 

“By a happy singularity, the king is still up,” she said. 
“I will send him word that we shall hold council and say 
that it is essential that he should attend.” 

“I understood that he was going a-hunting,” remarked 
the minister. 

“A fig! he can put that off for another day,” she re- 
plied, disdainfully. 

Taking up a pen, she wrote the note which we saw the 
king receive. 

As the captain general stood for fresh orders, she said 
with her most gracious smile, “Good-night, my dear gen- 
eral! I am grieved to detain you so late, but when you 
know what I have done, you will own that I have not 
wasted my time.” 

She held out her hand to her confidant, who kissed it 
respectfully and bowed to take leave, when she called 
out to stay him : 

“By the bye, the king will be out of sorts at the coun- 
cil.” 

“I am afraid he will !” 

“Recommend your colleagues not to breathe a word, 
and not even to reply if unquestioned; all the play will 
be done between the king and me.” 

“I am sure that your majesty, like all fair tragediennes, 
has taken the best part.” 

“I believe so, too! but you shall see.” 

Acton having bowed and gone, she muttered, as she 
rang for her tiring- woman, “If Emma does what she 
promised me, all will go swimmingly !” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE STATE COUNCIL. 

Besides the occult councils held by the queen in the 
dark room, there were four at the palace weekly. 

All the cabinet ministers attended, with the queen as- 
siduously and the king only when forced, about nine out 
of ten sessions. But she pretended simply to look on, 
and would coop herself up in a window recess with Lady 
Hamilton and scarcely heed the papers read and the 
speeches drawled. She had introduced the English- 
woman as one of her appendages, much as Ferdinando 
brought Jupiter, the retriever. 

All played their parts; the ministers pretended to de- 
bate ; Ferdinando pretended to listen, but scratched his 
dog behind the ears ; Carolina looked bored and ran her 
fingers through Lady Hamilton’s locks, dog and favorite 
both crouching. As they passed by them, the cabinet 
officers would stroke Jupiter and compliment Delilah, in 
the intervals of discussion, recompensed by a smile from 
the master or mistress. 

Acton alone seemed to comprehend the gravity of the 
situation, pilot charged with the responsibility of steer- 
ing this vessel beaten by the head wind out of France, on 
this sea of sirens, where eight diverse dominions had been 
wrecked. 

Supported by the British fleet, nearly sure of Nelson’s 
concurrence, and strong through her hate for the French, 
the queen had decided not only to affront danger but to 
run to it and taunt it. 

So the king’s sulky and testy bearing set off the queen’s 


66 


The State Council. 


blithesome and victorious air. Like the courtiers who 
took Acton’s hint to preserve Pythagorian silence, his pet, 
Jupiter, sneaked in, with hanging head and his tail hung 
under between his legs. Though the hunt was postponed, 
the royal Nimrod protested by wearing a hunting cos- 
tume. 

The royal chairman dolefully excused himself and 
called upon the queen to be the orator of the melancholy 
occasion. 

“Oh, my lords and gentlemen,” began she, with the 
captiousness always shown for her lord’s speech and 
manners, “the matter is very simple, and were the king in 
the mood for it, he could lay it before you in his blunt 
speech shortly. The French Ambassador, Citizen Garat, 
quitted Naples last night in a huff, declaring war on us.” 

“And,” supplemented the king, “it is only right to say 
-hat we bring this war upon ourselves, and our good 
friend, Dame Albion, has attained her wishes ! The 
main thing now is to know if she will uphold her end of 
the battering-ram ! But Lord Acton must see about that.” 

“And the brave Lord Nelson,” added the queen. “For 
that matter, he has shown what courage and genius allied 
will do!” 

“Never mind all that. I do not shrink from saying 
bluntly that a struggle with France is a mighty tussle !” 

“Less mighty,” retorted the queen, bitterly, “since Citi- 
zen Bonaparte is shut up in Egypt, where he must stay 
until France can build another fleet to rescue him, which 
will give him time to experiment raising sugar-beets with 
the seed the Directory sent out to plant over the Nile 
valley !” 

“Why, yes,” sneered the monarch, “they have penned 
up the victor of Areola and a few other strong places, but 
they have left unconfined other victors in Massena, Ber- 
nadotte and a host of enviable champions; without in- 


The State Council. 


67 

eluding that General Championnet, who, by the way, 
is only fifty or sixty miles off ; in other words, within three 
days’ march !” 

The queen pouted at this mention of the French com- 
mander, for by his own dispatch, she knew him to be 
temporarily impotent. The king thought the sneer was 
aimed at him. 

“I may be off a league or two,” acknowledged he, “but 
I am close enough. The saints know that since he got in 
among us, like the devil among the tailors, I have inquired 
often enough about how near he is !” 

“Oh, I do not question your geographical lore!” per- 
sisted the queen, with her pendent Austrian lip almost 
touching her chin. 

“Nay, nay, I fully understand that you only deny my 
political craft. Though San Nicandro did his utmost to 
make a donkey of me, and succeeded according to your 
test, I may observe to the gentlemen of the council that 
the situation is mixed up. There is more to do than send 
three or four ships of the line and some thousands of 
troops to Toulon. And by the same token, they came 
home in a damaged state, men and ships ! Though Citi- 
zen Bu-o-na-par-te was not much of a victor, then, he 
gave them their porridge hot ! It will not any longer suf- 
fice to send the coalition four cavalry regiments to per- 
form prodigies of valor in the Tyrol, but to be cut to 
pieces all the same! Note that, in ’93 and ’96, we were 
covered by the whole of Upper Italy, occupied by your 
nephew’s troops, but it may be said, without any mud- 
throwing, that they did not hurry into the field, though 
that Bonaparte fellow pared Master Francis’ nails pretty 
close to the quick with the Campo-Formia Treaty. The 
truth is, my Nephew Francis is a wary chap; the force 
you offer him is not enough to back him up, and he is 
waiting for what the Russian emperor has promised us. 


68 The State Council. 

He knows the French, for they have brushed his hair the 
wrong way!” 

Ferdinando chuckled, because he was beginning to re- 
cover his jollity at having had a tilt at the queen’s rela- 
tive. The latter was piqued by this slight, and the faint 
hilarity which timidly applauded the royal jester of his 
own Court. 

“I would have the king to observe that the Neapolitan 
Government is not free to choose time and the men like 
the Emperor of Austria. We did not declare war on 
France, but France has done so on us; so we must con- 
sult with the war minister about our means.” 

“Certainly, we must know about the means and men. 
Where are the sixty-five thousand troops some gentle- 
men mentally paraded to us ?” 

The captain-general read out a list. 

“By St. Januarius, I have an army of over sixty thou- 
sand !” exclaimed the sovereign. 

“All in new uniforms, too, in the Austrian mode.” 

“Do you mean to say they wear white?” 

“Instead of green, yes, sire.” 

“Alack-a-day !” sighed the ruler, with grotesque sad- 
ness, “white or green — they are fast colors — they will run 
as well in one as the other!” 

“You have a sorry opinion of your subjects,” com- 
mented the queen. 

“Sorry? No, a bright one! I think they are too intelli- 
gent to go and get slain for a quarrel which does not con- 
cern them. Out of those sixty-five thousand are fifteen 
thousand veterans; but they have never fired a loaded 
cartridge or heard a ball whistle. They will not run at 
the first bullet, but they will at the second! Save you! 
me and my dog listen to you, but we also listen to others, 
and we hear how you raised that army! Enrolled them 
by lottery, and let the rich men’s sons buy themselves 


The State Council. 


6 9 

substitutes. Do you think that these siftings — the culls 
rejected — will go and get killed for unjust stewards, pecu- 
lative sheriffs, thievish understrappers, and above all a 
ruler who hunts, fishes and finds his fun in riding over 
their crops and whooping his hounds over their kitchen- 
gardens? They would be numskulls! If I were a sol- 
dier in such a service, I should desert and turn brigand; 
at least, brigands do have a jolly life and really fight 
among themselves/’ 

“I am forced to believe that there is much truth in 
your majesty’s saying,” granted the war minister. 

“Of course, I speak the truth always,” said the council 
president, “when I have no grounds for falsifying under- 
stood ! But now, admitting your sixty-five thousand 
Rolands equipped in the latest Austrian vogue, who is 
going to lead them? You, General Ariola?” 

“Sire, one cannot be both head of the war depart- 
ment and head of the army !” 

“And you would rather be head of the department — 
I agree with you !” 

“Sire,” interrupted the queen, “it is useless for your 
majesty to look about for a commander-in-chief, for we 
have one.” 

“You never mean that you found him in my realm!” 
protested Ferdinando. 

“No, my good lord, though he is to be found in your 
realm at present ! I begged my nephew to send me a man 
whose military fame will impose on the enemy and satisfy 
our friends’ exactions !” 

“What is his celebrated name?” 

“The Baron Charles Mack !” and she advanced toward 
the door, which, as if by magic, opened as for royalty, 
both wings, and a personage was ushered in, to the gen- 
eral surprise. 

The cause of this entire astonishment was a man of 


The State Council. 


70 

about fifty-five years, tall, pale, fair, wearing an Aus- 
trian general’s uniform, with the general’s insignia, and 
among other adornments the tokens of the orders of 
Maria Theresa and St. Januarius. 

“Sire,” said the queen, “I have the honor to present 
Baron Charles Mack, under promise of being appointed 
commander-in-chief of your majesty’s armies.” 

“Enchanted to make your acquaintance, general !” re- 
sponded the potentate, but eying ascant the St. Januarius 
decoration, which was in his gift, but which he could not 
recall bestowing in this quarter. 

Mack was bowing and about to make some civil reply 
when the lady broke in : 

“Sire, I was in the belief that it became us, as well as 
the general, not to let him arrive without some token of 
our appreciation, so I directed our envoy at Vienna to 
invest him with the insignia of our order.” 

“And I, my liege,” interjected the baron, with a flour- 
ish too theatrical to be real, “full of gratitude to your 
majesty, came with lightning promptitude to say : ‘My 
sword is yours !’ ” 

The king rolled back his chair as the sword was, in- 
deed, drawn. Like James I., he did not like the flash of 
steel. 

“This weapon is for your service and Her majesty’s, 
and will never rest quiet in its scabbard until it shall have 
overthrown that infamous French Republic, which is 
humanity’s negation and Europe’s shame! Will you ac- 
cept my vow, sovereign ?” continued Mack, swinging the 
blade formidably. 

Little inclined to dramatic outbursts, Ferdinando had 
the good sense to properly measure all the ridiculous blus- 
ter in this entrance, and with his mocking grimace he 
muttered in the Neapolitan dialect : 

“Ceuza!” (braggart). 


The State Council. 


7i 

As this was unintelligible to any man not born in the 
fumes of Vesuvius, Mack did not understand it, and as 
he could not wait with his sword balanced in the air for 
the king’s more explicit compliment, he addressed the 
queen. 

“Did not his majesty do me the honor of a remark?” 

“In one local word full of meaning, his majesty did 
convey his gratitude,” replied Carolina, ingeniously. 

While the king still quizzed him roguishly, Mack ma- 
jestically slid his falchion into the sheath. 

“And now,” continued the monarch, in the same jeer- 
ing vein, “since my dear nephew has sent me one of his 
first generals to upset this infamous French Republic, I 
hope he has accompanied him with a plan of campaign 
drawn up by the Aulic Council.” 

This request, made with well played simplicity, was an- 
other quip of the royal merrymaker, for the Aulic Coun- 
cils had drawn up the plans of ’93 and 96, under which 
Archduke Charles and his generals had been thoroughly 
beaten. 

“No, sire ; I begged of my august master, the emperor, 
free will on that subject, which favor he accorded me.” 

“Then you will let us have it forthwith, eh? for I ad- 
mit that I await such a boon with impatience.” 

“I have drawn it up,” replied the arch-strategist, like 
a man quite satisfied with himself. 

“Hark to that, gentlemen !” exclaimed Ferdinando, be- 
coming droll again at having a butt. “Before even Citi- 
zen Garat declared war on us, in the name of the con- 
founded French Republic, the hag in the red nightcap was 
trounced ! thanks to the genius of our new chief general ! 
We are plainly under the shield of the god of battles and 
St. Januarius ! I thank the general.” 

Inflated by the eulogy which he literally interpreted, 
the Austrian bowed. 


72 


The State Council. 


“What a pity,” went on the badgering king, “that we 
have not a map here on which to follow the plan of this 
leader. I heard that General Bonaparte had a large chart 
in his Parisian headquarters, on which, with his secreta- 
ries, he used to f .allow the developments of his theories 
and plans. If we had one here, we might be enlightened 
and set at ease by watching on it the unfolding of this 
scheme, which may be as good as any of the Corsican in- 
novator !” 

“As good,” returned Mack, contentedly. 

He gave an order to an usher, who brought in a large 
portfolio, emblazoned with gold; the Austrian arms on 
one side and Mack’s name and titles on the reverse. Out 
of this was extracted a large map of the Roman States, 
which he spread on the table. 

All the officers approached, for Mack bore the reputa- 
tion of being the leading strategist. 

The queen turned away as if not interested, and on 
the king’s rebuke, retorted as she pointed to Cardinal 
Ruffo, counselor by courtesy, whom she hated, “perhaps 
I should displace a master of these things !” 

Mack glibly disclosed his plans by which the French 
were to be forced to evacuate Rome, beaten at their last 
stand. 

“Grand !” declared the king. “But if they are not 
beaten ?” 

“Sire, when I have the honor to tell your majesty that 
I shall beat them, beaten they must be !” 

“Then, all goes well. Only you said that the plan in- 
cluded my going with you afield, in which event I should 
be mixed up with the warfare ?” 

“No doubt.” 

“You give me the first news of it! Do I occupy any 
rank to speak of?” 

“The supreme command, of course!” 


The State Council. 


73 

“The front of battle ? Humph ! you forget that I am 
not a man of bloodshed. The supreme command for 
me?” continued the railler. “Did San Nicandro rear me 
for a Hannibal or an Alexander? Did I study so as to 
be beaten according to all the rules and regulations?” 

“Sire,” replied Mack, “a son of Henry IV. and Louis 
XIV. knows war without being taught it !” 

“My dear general, tell such rot to fools and not to a 
blockhead like me.” 

“Oh !” exclaimed the foreigner, astounded to hear a 
potentate express so frankly such an opinion on himself. 

“And then, one of the first parts for a general is brav- 
ery, I take it?” 

“Incontestibly !” 

“It follows that you are brave! Are you sure?” 

“Hem !” 

“Well, I am not sure I am !” 

The queen blushed up to her ears ; Mack stared at the 
speaker. Ministers and courtiers smiled, knowing their 
master’s cynicism. 

“Well,” said the king, gazing around, “you have had 
the plan laid bare. Do you approve?” 

Under the queen’s eyes, all approved, with the excep- 
tion of Cardinal Ruffo, who though counselor ex officio, 
or because he was ex officio, ventured criticism. And 
what was more annoying, his criticism was so just that, 
to say nothing of the king approving, Mack was com- 
pelled to assent to it. 

“My lord cardinal,” observed Mack, biting his lip, “the 
king is free to choose between us, your plan and mine, 
for, perhaps,” he proceeded, with a superficial grin, “to 
wage a war which may be styled a holy one, Peter the 
Hermit is to be preferred to Godfrey of Bouillon.” 

Ferdinando did not know any too clearly who were the 
first King of Jerusalem and the crusading preacher, but 


74 The State Council. 

while baiting the Austrian, he did not wish to discontent 
him. 

“What do you say, my dear general !” he cried out, 
warmly. “I take your plan as excellent, and you see that 
these gentlemen hold it so, too. Well, we have got our 
army, and our plan of operations. And the commander- 
in-chief? There is nothing lacking but the funds.” 

The financial minister had to admit that equipping the 
army in the Austrian mode had exhausted the treasury. 

“Do you hear that, lady ?” appealed the monarch to the 
queen. “No money !” 

“Sire, money is not wanting, since we have a million 
pounds sterling at your disposal.” 

“A million pounds ! by Pluto !” (The good king meant 
Plutus, but it was a close shot.) “Who is the gold-finder 
who has turned up this mass?” 

The lady went over to that door by which she had in- 
troduced the baron. 

“I am to have the honor to present him,” she explained. 
Addressing a person invisible but nigh without, she pur- 
sued: “Will your grace kindly confirm to the king my 
announcement, to wit, that to wage war upon the Jacob- 
ins, money is forthcoming?” 

All eyes were turned toward this ingress, when who 
should appear on the threshold but Nelson, radiant, 
while behind him, like an Elysian shade, was partly 
eclipsed the graceful figure of Emma Lady Hamilton, who 
was prompting Nelson’s devotion and the English sub- 
sidy. 



“ All eyes were turned toward this ingress, when who should appear 
on the threshold but Nelson." 

(See page 74) 



















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CHAPTER IX. 


GIVE AND TAKE. 

Nelson’s advent at such a point was significant. It was 
the deadly foe of France sitting with the Naples council 
and sustaining with all the power of its gold, Carolina’s 
falsehood and treachery. 

Everybody knew the newcomer except Mack, so lately 
arrived ; the queen led the Briton by the hand up to the 
redoubtable maker of plans, and thus introduced him : 

“I present the hero of the sea to the hero of the land.” 

Nelson, inimical for all land fighters, might be little 
flattered by the parallel, but he was in too good spirits 
at the time to be hurt, and, saluting Baron Mack cour- 
teously, the Baron of the Nile turned to the king. 

“Sire,” he said, “I am delighted to be empowered to 
say to your majesty and his cabinet that I can treat in 
England’s name on all questions anent the war with 
France.” 

The king was trapped ; during his repose, Carolina had 
bound him hand and foot as the little folk bound Gulli- 
ver; he was forced to put the best face on the unpleasant 
matter. 

The direct envoy of Great Britain laid on the table the 
full powers : 

“Upon his arrival at Naples, the Right Honorable Lord 
Nelson, Baron of the Nile, is authorized to concert with 
our ambassador at the Court of the Two Sicilies in sus- 
taining our august ally, the King of Naples, in all the ne- 
cessities arising from a war with the French Republic. 
“London, this 7th of May, 1798. W. Pitt.” 


Give and Take. 


76 

Acton translated the lines to his lord, who beckoned 
Ruffo to his side, as a reinforcement in counteraction to 
the queen’s accessions. The cardinal divined what the 
king wanted to know. 

“A million English is about five and a half million 
ducats,” he interpreted. 

“Whew !” 

“This sum,” added Nelson, “is a first instalment to- 
ward meeting the difficulties.” 

“But,” objected Ferdinando, “this is the winter equinox 
and it takes time for a ship to carry news between Lon- 
don and Naples ; before we get matters in working order, 
the French will have marched into Naples !” 

Carolina forestalled the Englishman’s reply. 

“Your majesty may dwell tranquil on that point — the 
French are not in the condition to carry the war so far!” 

“But Garat declared it!” 

His consort smiled disdainfully. 

“Citizen Garat was in too much of a hurry. If he had 
waited a little while to know the state of things at Rome, 
he would not have been so precipitate. For, here is the 
dispatch the citizen would have received this morning if 
he had not hastened off last night !” 

She drew from its envelope the message which her pri- 
vate police officer had stolen from the bearer after having 
slain him, and brought to the dark room. The king 
glanced at it, but it was in French, and might as well have 
been in Hebrew. As if he trusted to no one but Ruffo 
there, he passed it over to him, saying: 

“Let us have the Italian of that, cardinal.” 

In the midst of the densest silence, the prelate read : 

“Citizen Ambassador: 

“Having been only a few days in Rome, I deem it my 
duty to bring under your notice the state of the forces 
over which I am set in command. From these, my pre- 


Give and Take. 


77 

cise notes, you may regulate your conduct toward the 
perfidious court, which, impelled by our eternal enemy, 
England, only waits for the favoring moment to open war 
upon us.” 

Nelson and the queen exchanged a glance, smiling. 
Nelson did not understand Italian, but he must have been 
given an inkling of this text through Emma. 

The confidential paper went on with details revealing 
that the French had less than ten thousand fit men, five 
siege guns and not two hundred thousand cartridges. 

“You hear, sire?” cried the queen, exultantly. 
“Against that I believe we have nothing to fear in this 
war !” 

“ ‘With these means/ ” continued the reader, “ ‘the citi- 
zen ambassador will readily see that I cannot repulse a 
hostile aggression, and still less, carry war into the Nea- 
politan territory ’ ” 

“Does not that encourage you?” sneered the queen. 

“Humph! is there any more to the same tune?” said 
Ferdinando. 

“Therefore, I cannot too strongly urge you, citizen 
ambassador, to maintain as far as French dignity allows, 
the good harmony between the Republic and the Court of 
the Two Sicilies, and to calm the Neapolitan patriots. 
Curb all movement for a rising for three months, as that 
time will be necessary for me to organize the army, other- 
wise the rising will be premature and inevitably abortive. 

“In fraternity, 

“Championnet. 

“18th September, 1798.” 

“Well, sir,” said the queen, “if you were but half en- 
couraged before, this ought to fully reassure you.” 

“On one point, yes, but not on another.” 

“Ah, I understand. You allude to the traitorous re- 
publican party among us? You see it is not a phantom; 
but, existing, it is to be curbed. The Jacobins themselves 
give us that advice.” 

“But how the plague did you obtain such a paper?” said 


78 Give and Take. 

the king, viewing it, in the cardinal’s hands, with 
curiosity. 

“That is my secret, sir ! Allow me to preserve it. But 
I fear that I interrupted Lord Nelson in answering a 
question of your majesty’s.” 

The Englishman explained that there would be no de- 
lay, as Sir William Hamilton would draw by a letter of 
exchange on Baker & Son, bankers, for the sum, which 
Nelson will indorse, and the bankers’ correspondents 
in Italy would cash. As the sum was important, the king 
should notify the parties in time. 

Ruffo whispered to his patron, who 'nodded, and re- 
sumed : 

“But my good ally of England, however friendly to 
Sicily, does not hand over cash for nothing. I know ‘the 
old Lady of Threadneedle Street!’ What is required in 
exchange ?” 

“A trifle which cannot prejudice your majesty. When 
the British fleet, now blockading Malta, takes it from the 
French, it is promised that your majesty shall transfer his 
rights over that island to his Britannic majesty, in order 
that we may, now having only Gibraltar in the Middle 
Sea, make Malta a naval station and provisioning haven 
for our vessels.” 

“Good ! that will not cost me a pang, since it belongs 
to the Knights of Malta.” 

“That’s true; but when we shall have taken Malta, we 
will dissolve the order !” 

“Yes, yes,” interpolated Ruffo, with haste; “but when 
the order is dissolved, its property returns to the king- 
dom of the Two Sicilies; hence, if England needs another 
naval station in the Mediterranean, why, we will oblige 
her — but it will cost twenty-five millions of francs !” 

Any discussion of the point raised by this amiable pre- 


Give and Take. 


79 

late was stopped by a loud burst from hunting-horns in 
the courtyard. 

The king ran to the window and opened it to look out 
before the flourishing was over. 

“Sounding the tally-ho when the hunting was put off, 
worse luck ! Will somebody explain what they are set- 
ting up this miserable taunt for ?” 

A chief huntsman responded from the depths : 

“May it please your majesty, it means that we have un- 
earthed fifteen wild boars, so that we may count on not 
losing the day.” 

“Count on your grandmother!” roared the exasperated 
monarch ; “do you hear that, my lady ? Fifteen boars, 
and I cannot hunt them !” 

“Why should you not hunt them?” rejoined the queen, 
smilingly stepping forward. “Now that business is fin- 
ished, nothing prevents you going !” 

The king became radiant. 

“Huzza ! my Diana ! you not only meet to replace the 
prime minister, but the grand huntsman ! You have your 
wishes and I mine ! Dear me ! I am so invigorated that 
I feel brave ! After all, what is a campaign but a hunt ? 
And a wild boar is as hard to face as a soldier! Good- 
by, all !” 

“But Malta?” inquired Ruffo, wistfully. 

“A rock which is good for nothing but twice a year 
when the quail fly over ! No pheasants and no drinking 
water! They have to get all the green stuff over from 
Sicily, since they cannot grow so much as a radish there ! 
Let the British take Malta, and clear me out these Jacob- 
ins, which is all I ask of them. Fifteen boars! eh, Jupi- 
ter ; seek ’em !” 

He dashed out, mock-trumpeting the horns. 

“My lord,” said the queen to the admiral, “you can 
write to your government that the Two Sicilies will make 


8o 


Give and Take. 


no opposition to the cession of Malta. Gentlemen,” she 
added to the cabinet officers, “the king thanks you for the 
good counsel you have offered. The session is over.’’ 

Courtesying to all, and giving a killing glance to poor 
Ruffo, she sailed out, accompanied by Mack and Nelson. 


CHAPTER X. 

A SUPERABUNDANCE OF e's. 

The Neapolitan royal country seat was at Caserta. 
The mansion and grounds are likened to those of Ver- 
sailles. The Neapolitans who had not traveled in France 
asserted that Caserta was finer than Versailles ; those who 
hid seen the model thought it was as fine; but impartial 
sightseers set it beneath ; in this we agree, and will main- 
tain that all taste goes with us. 

It was here that Ferdinando gave a dinner to Andreas 
Baker, son of the banker who put the English gold at his 
disposal, for a king might dine a banker in his manor 
when it would be too great a condescension to feast him 
in his palace. 

The queen was not sorry to lose their company, for she 
was eager to speak with Captain-General Acton. Leav- 
ing Sir William Hamilton and his lady to preside at the 
table, she passed into her sitting-room. 

“Well?” she demanded. 

“Your majesty is probably inquiring as to that mutb 
lated letter?” 

“No doubt! Have I not written to you twice about 
it? I feel engirt with daggers and plots and do not see 
clearly.” 

“As I promised, I have succeeded in removing the 
blood stains.” 

“That was not the crux — but have you left the writing 
plain ?” 

“Plainly enough to be read with a magnifying glass.” 


82 A Superabundance of E’s. 

“Was it a very difficult operation, that it took so much 
time ?” 

“On account of the importance of the success, I tried 
several ways.” 

“To the result !” 

He held out to her the letter, and also handed her a 
magnifying lens, which was used to study paintings min- 
utely. What was untouched by the blood was legible 
enough, but there were irregular gaps which, being im- 
perfectly filled by the letters faded by the experimental 
acids, became a puzzle. But with much attention and 
Acton’s hints, she could in the end decipher as follows : 

“Dear Caracciolo: 

“Excuse your poor darling for not keeping the ap- 
pointment at which she promised herself so much bliss; 
I vow it was no fault of mine; it was after seeing you 
that I was notified by the queen that with all the court 
ladies I must be present at the reception to Lord Nelson. 
She did me the compliment of saying that I was one of 
the stars with which she hoped to dazzle the victor of the 
Nile. It would only be half the task with him, since he 
has but one eye. Be not jealous, since I prefer Acis to 
Polyphemus. I will inform you when I am free. 

“Your fond and faithful, E.” 

“Pshaw !” observed the lady, “this gives little informa- 
tion and the writer seems to have foreseen that her epistle 
would be read by a stranger. But then the Caraccioli 
have always been gallants and she may be a woman of 
caution !” 

“I do not see that she is a miracle of caution, and for 
that matter none aver the ladies of the palace to be of 
that sort. We shall find out this evening who it is. 
That is, if your majesty kindly acted on my suggestion 
to invite all the ladies who were at the Nelsonic reception 
and whose names begin with the fifth letter of the al- 
phabet.” 


A Superabundance of E’s. 83 

“There are only seven ! Princess Cariati, an Emilia ; 
Countess St. Marco, Eleanora ; Marchioness San Clem- 
ente, Elena ; Duchess Termoli, Elisabetta ; Duchess Tursi, 
Elisa; Marchioness Altaville, Eufrasia; and Countess 
Eugenia Policastro. I am not including Emma, Lady 
Hamilton, who cannot be tangled in this affair.” 

“But of your seven wise and foolish matrons and vir- 
gins, two are over the age to write to Caraccioli even.” 

“Granted ; but what will we do with the five ?” 

“Try them, not in a balance, but with a pen. Let your 
majesty get them to furnish samples of their handwriting, 
comparing them with this ” 

“You are right,” said she, laying her hand on her con- 
fidant’s. “Knowing the woman, we shall capture the 
man. Let us go back to the company.” She rose. 

“I should like the audience ten minutes longer. Bus- 
iness of the highest degree.” 

She took her seat again. 

“The night that letter was given me, the king’s rooms 
were lit up till three in the morning? Does your maj- 
esty know who kept the king up so late?” 

“Cardinal Ruffo — a gentleman in my train told me 
that.” 

“Did he tell you that on the heels of that interview a 
courier rode off — the king’s own messenger, Ferrari?” 

“How do you know?” 

“My English groom, Tom, sleeps in the stables, he is 
so fond of horses. At about three, he spies Ferrari ready 
dressed for a ride, coming into the place, saddling a horse 
with his own hands, and dashing off. He told me the 
same, when holding my stirrup for my ride. I won- 
dered who would be communicated with after a confab 
between the prelate and the ruler, and concluded that the 
latter wrote to his nephew.” 


84 A Superabundance of E’s. 

“The Kaiser of Austria? The king do such a thing 
without warning to me!” 

“I don’t say the king, but the cardinal ” 

“Tut, tut!” said Carolina, frowning, “I may not be 
an Anna of Austria; but Ruffo is not a Richelieu! He 
had best take care!” 

“To me the matter looks bad.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Any doubts were soon scattered. For my groom fol- 
lowed on the track. Ferrari left his horse at the posting- 
house of Capua, taking a fresh one and saying that he 
would call for his own about the third or fourth of next 
month ” 

“In twelve days?” 

“Scant time to get to Vienna and home; Ferrari will 
do it, though these are war times ” 

“Indeed they are!” 

“So you ought to know what the king, under prompting 
of Cardinal Ruffo, wrote to the emperor and what the 
emperor replies.” 

“Do not ask Ferrari then, as he is attached exclusively 
to his master, and incorruptible.” 

“Every fort has a window through which a purse can 
be tossed. Ferrari may not be so incorruptible, after 
all.” 

“If he still rejects the bribe, however large, and tells 
the king, who is quite mistrustful already?” 

“Let Sir William Hamilton seduce him, then. If he 
fails, we shall not be compromised. And we can try our 
own pressure ” 

“Too late! And Sir William would not consent ” 

“Your majesty could induce his wife to talk him over !” 

“But Ferrari might slip by without our knowledge !” 

“Not without mine. I will have him waylaid ; told that 
the king is here, and we will bring him to Sir William.” 


A Superabundance of E’s. 85 

“That may succeed, as likely that it may fail,” mut- 
tered the queen, brooding. 

“It is much to have prospects even, and with a woman 
and a queen, chance will lean to you !” 

“You are right, Acton. We are playing with fire. If 
it strikes out the light we need, well and good ! If it 
spreads too far, we must hope to control it. Send a man 
to Capua to intercept Ferrari and notify Sir William.” 

Shaking her head, overburdened with racking cares, 
as if to shake off some of them, she entered the drawing- 
room with a light step and smiling lips. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE ACROSTIC. 

A number of guests had arrived, among whom were 
the seven persons the initial of whose first names hap- 
pened to be E. 

The men were Nelson and two of his officers ; also his 
friends, Captains Trowbridge and Ball. The Italians 
were men of fashion or of politics, descendants mainly of 
the oldest Spanish or Neapolitan families. 

All eagerly awaited the queen’s coming, and bowed to 
her respectfully. 

Carolina had set herself two tasks this evening — first to 
show off Emma the Lovely so as to ensnare Nelson more 
than ever; and second to learn by handwriting the lady 
who was enamored of a Caracciolo. To attach the Ne- 
apolitan admiral with the conspirators linked with the 
French, was an immense advantage. Only those who 
participated in the queen’s private evening parties, in 
which “Emma Lyonna” was the great charm and prin- 
cipal ornament, could relate to what height the modern 
Armida lifted her beholders in delirium and enthusiasm. 
If her magical poses and voluptuous pantomime had deep 
influence on northerners, how much more must they have 
electrified the violent southern imagination impassioned 
with song, music and poetry, and knowing Cimarosa and 
Metastasio by heart? 

(In our own tours of Naples and Sicily, we met old 
gentlemen who had witnessed these magnetic exhibitions 
and, after fifty years’ past, they had quivered like youths 
over the burning memories.) 


The Acrostic. 


§7 

It is admitted that Lady Hamilton was lovely. What 
must she have been on this evening, when she wished to 
bewitch Nelson and outshine the belles in their elegant 
costumes ? 

Faithful to her traditions of liberty and art, Lady Ham- 
ilton wore an attire which, though novel, was to be 
adopted by all the beauties. A long tunic of blue cash- 
mere fell in those folds only seen in antique statuary; 
floating over her shoulders in long wavy tresses, her hair 
threw off the reflections of melting gold; her girdle was 
the queen’s gift, a chain of unequaled diamonds, which, 
after being caught up in a knot like an ordinary cord, 
reached to her knee. Her arms were bare from the shoul- 
der to the finger-tips; but one arm was clamped in at 
the top and wrist by serpents in diamonds with ruby 
eyes; one hand was loaded with rings, while the other, 
on the contrary, shone solely with the brightness of the 
fine skin and the luster of the pink nails. 

Her feet, being in flesh-colored stockings, seemed nude 
in their sky-blue sandals having gold laces. 

This stupefying glamour, heightened by the odd ap- 
parel, had a touch of the supernatural, alarming and ter- 
rifying. From this revival of Greek paganism, women 
shrank with jealousy and men with dread. To love this 
Astarte was to be found dead, by one’s own hand, on her 
temple steps. 

Attractive as she was, and because so fascinating, Lady 
Hamilton sat lonely on a sofa at its end, though there 
was a ring around her. No one but Nelson, her hus- 
band’s guest, had a right to sit by her; but he devoured 
her with his sight, and leaned on Trowbridge, enchanted, 
wondering by what miracle of chance or political sport, 
the veteran seaman, mutilated in many battles, had such 
a claim on a privileged creature uniting all the perfec- 
tions. 


88 


The Acrostic. 


But in this royal hall, where so many envious and wish- 
ful looks were enveloping her, she was less abashed and 
more placid than in the alcove at Dr. Graham’s. 

On seeing the queen, she rose and ran to her as though 
to be saved by her help, crying out : 

“Pray your majesty, cast your shadow over me or tell 
these friends that there is no such risk run by approach- 
ing me as to rest under the upas tree.” 

“Do you complain of that, ungrateful being!” laugh- 
ingly returned the sovereign ; “why are you so fair as to 
cause hearts to burst with jealousy and despair?” 

She kissed her and whispered : “Look your finest to- 
night — you must !” 

Encircling her favorite’s neck with her arm, she led 
her back to the sofa, around which everybody pressed 
now. 

Acton came in just then, darting a glance at his mis- 
tress to transmit that all was going as she desired. After 
having conversed with Lady Hamilton, she said, aloud: 

“I have prevailed on our good dear to afford us this 
evening a specimen of all her talents. That is, she will 
kindly oblige us with a national English ballad, or the 
like; a scene out of Shakespeare, and dance The Shawl 
Dance, which has only been seen by myself.” 

There was a buzz of joy and curiosity. 

“Ah, but your majesty should mention that I do this 
on condition of having a memento of this happy night !” 
protested the English siren. 

“What is it?” asked the ladies, and after them the 
gentlemen, similarly interested. 

“Why,” said Lady Hamilton, “the queen happened to 
remark the singularity that there are as many as seven 
or eight of the ladies present who have their Christian 
names begin with the same letter, E.” 


The Acrostic. 89 

“Why, that’s so !” ejaculated the court ladies, after veri- 
fying the count. “Seven E’s!” 

“Well, if I meet your wishes, you ought to meet mine?” 

“You ladies must allow that it is only fair!” inter- 
polated the mistress of the fete. 

“You have only to mention it, my lady,” was the re- 
ply. 

“I beg to conserve a precious keepsake of the oc- 
casion,” proceeded the amateur actress. “Let the queen 
kindly write her name on a sheet of paper, with each letter 
to become the first letter of a line, written by each of the 
seven E’s. Let them be rhyming couplets, to test your 
qualities of improvisation, native to you — good or not — 
and I hope, as my ‘Emma’ makes me an E, there will be 
some poor ones so as to pair me off! As a souvenir of 
this evening, during which I had the honor to be in the 
society of the handsomest queen in Christendom and its 
fairest ladies, I will enframe it in my album.” 

“With all my heart,” said Carolina; “I will do my 
part.” 

Going up to a table, she wrote her name, “Carolina,” 
across a page of paper. 

“But we are not all poetesses!” protested the ladies, 
sentenced to make “lightning poetry.” 

“Invoke Apollo, and if he is not less gallant than your 
admirers, he will make you so !” retorted the hostess. 

There was no receding; besides, Lady Hamilton had 
gone up stoutly to the altar for the tribute, that is, the 
writing table, and already was writing a line from the 
first letter in her royal name, C., as its own commence- 
ment. 

The other ladies resigned themselves, and one after 
the other came up to the ordeal and wrote something to 
which they appended their names. When the last, Mar- 
chioness San Clemente, had finished, the queen almost 


90 


The Acrostic. 


snatched up the acrostic. The concurrence of the eight 
muses had produced the solution sought by her. She 
read aloud : 


ACROSTIC TO QUEEN CAROLINA. 

Chosen to wield a sway supreme ! — Emma Hamilton. 

A diadem must on you gleam ! — Emilia Cariati. 

Replete with all our tribute — love! — Eleonora San-Marco. 

On you long fall the light above! — Elizabetta Termoli. 

Let Mount Vesuvius blaze your fame! — Elisa Tursi. 

In all our poems sound your name ! — Eufrasia, of Altavilla. 

Now do our hearts, forever thine ! — Eugenia, of Policasstro. 

Ask but to worship at your shrine! — Elena San Clemente. 

“Just notice, General Acton,” observed the queen, while 
the gentlemen were applauding the authoresses, aston- 
ished that they had done so well ( !), “what a pretty hand 
the Marchioness of San Clemente writes !” 

The minister took the paper to hold it up to a candle, 
compared it in his mind’s eye with the incriminatory let- 
ter, and with a smile returning the valuable and ominous 
autograph to the sovereign, rejoined : 

“Very pretty, indeed!” 


CHAPTER XII. 


SAPPHIC VERSES. 

The dual praise of queen and premier on the mar- 
chioness’ handwriting passed without anybody attaching 
weight to it, including the object. The former clung to 
the acrostic, promising to let Emma have it on the next 
day, and as this first ice, which chills the opening of all 
parties, was broken, all mingled in that delightful babble, 
which the royal hostess knew how to farther in her in- 
timacy, by her art in banishing etiquette and dropping all 
social fetters. 

In these unrestrained gatherings Carolina not only for- 
got she was a sovereign, but that she was woman. Elec- 
trical flashes dashed out of her orbs, her nostrils dilated, 
her bosom heaved, like the rolling waves, her voice be- 
came rancid and uneven, and a rasping came from her 
mouth which was astonishing, reminding one of a pan- 
ther or, by imagination, of a bacchante. 

Going up to Lady Hamilton and putting her rose-coral 
hand on her alabaster shoulders, she demanded: 

‘‘Have you forgotten, fair one, that you are not your 
own property this evening? You promised us wonders 
and we are fretting to applaud you.” 

Counter to the queen, the amateur figurante seemed 
drowned in languor. Her neck had no strength to sup- 
port her head, which bent toward one shoulder or the 
other, and sometimes in a spasm sank backward; her 
half-closing eyes veiled the burning pupils under the long 
lashes; her parted lips showed the white teeth between 


92 Sapphic Verses. 

purple; her hair darkened by contrast with her com- 
plexion. 

She had not seen, but she felt the royal hand upon 
her shoulder, and a shiver ran over her frame. 

“What is your desire ?” she inquired, listlessly, and with 
a toss of the head in superior gracefulness. “I am ready 
to obey you. Would you like the balcony scene from 
‘Romeo and Juliet?' But it is a duo to be done fitly, and 
there is no Romeo.” 

“Nay, nay, no love scenes,” returned the hostess, laugh- 
ingly. “You would drive them all wild and give me a 
turn, too, I dare say! No; rather something to freeze 
the blood or at least f rap per it! Juliet's monologue 
among the tombs ; that is all I tolerate this evening.” 

“If you will supply me with something white and light, 
I will take the stage !” 

There lay on a divan an ample white China crape 
shawl, probably in readiness, and Emma having taken it 
from her patron, waved all aside with a tragedienne’s 
imperative gesture. In a trice, she stood alone in the 
center. 

The queen gave a synopsis of the tragedy, not as well 
known in Italy, though the story is Italian and ought to 
have been familiar to all. As soon as the explanation 
had brought the spectators to the point where Juliet is 
left alone after having been informed that she must wed 
“the County Paris,” Emma took the cue. 

A dolorous sigh had attracted all sight upon her. She 
had already wrapped herself in the shawl, so that none 
of her dress was unconcealed ; in her hands her face was 
hidden; but gradually she let them slide down and her 
pale countenance was seen. It was impressed with the 
utmost misery, and it was impossible to perceive the 
slightest trace of the stupor that it had previously worn. 


Sapphic Verses. 93 

Quite otherwise, it showed anguish, forced to its par- 
oxysm; terror arrived at its apogee. 

Slowly she turned as it were on herself, as if to follow 
with her gaze her mother and the nurse, even when lost 
to sight, and with her arms extended as if to bestow an 
eternal farewell on the world, and with a voice whose 
every vibration thrilled the heart, she said : 

“Farewell ! God knows when we shall meet again. 
****** * 

Romeo, I come!” (She drinks the poison.) 

“This do I drink to thee!” 

Making the gesture of drinking a draft, she seemed to 
shrink and collapse, like a molten wax figure, into her 
own frame, and fell inert on the carpet, where she re- 
mained without a stir. 

The illusion was so great that, forgetting it was acting, 
Nelson, more familiar with oceanic tempests than scenic 
ones, uttered a shout and flew toward the actress, to en- 
wrap her with his hale arm and lift her up as though she 
were a child. 

He was rewarded ; for the lady’s first act, on reopening 
her eyes, was to smile upon him. Then only did he un- 
derstand his blunder, and retired, confused, into a cor- 
ner. 

The queen took his place, and all the ladies thronged 
around and complimented the would-be Juliet. 

Never had the magic of art, carried to this point, gone 
beyond. Though expressed in a foreign tongue, none 
of the feelings animating the Montague beloved had 
missed the viewers. By her skill, fiction had become re- 
ality. The noble company, quite unaware of the mys- 
teries of English drama, were deeply moved. 

After the hush of stupefaction there were enthusiastic 
eulogies and charming flatteries. 


94 Sapphic Verses. 

Emma, born for the theatre, but forced by fortune on 
the political stage, felt sadness after the glow of this 
tribute, even from the queen. If she had been allowed, 
she would have fallen into one of her brown studies ; but 
her hostess was afraid that such relapses were not with- 
out regrets and remorse. She hurriedly impelled her to 
fresh conquests, in the intoxication of which she would 
forget herself. 

Taking her by the arm and shaking her as a mesmer- 
ized medium to be called out of a trance, she said : 

“No dreaming! You know that I do not like reveries. 
Sing or dance ! The night is yours — do either !” 

“With your leave, I will chant,” replied the other. “I 
never play that scene without being left in a trembling, 
which gives my voice the tremolo so liked by you. What 
shall the piece be?” 

“Something odd ! What do you say to that fragment 
found in the Herculaneum ruins, which they attribute to 
Sappho? The prince royal’s librarian has found a gen- 
uine hymn with music of the period which you think goes 
with it. Put them together with your cunning in har- 
mony, and again astound my company !” 

Leaving her protegee, she sat on a settee near the Duke 
of Rocca-Romano, and engaged in conversation with him. 
Lady Hamilton had disappeared, but soon returned. She 
had donned a laurel garland, a red mantle, and found, in 
the Royal Museum, of the treasures unburied under the 
Vesuvian lava, a Lesbian lyre which may never have been 
touched since a contemporary of Sappho handled it. 

There was an outcry of amaze, for she was hardly rec- 
ognized. This was not the gentle yet ardent Juliet; a 
flame like Phaedra’s shot from her eyes; her rapid step 
had the virility of the Dianas, and her motion seemed to 
send off a magnetic current in a perfume. This was a 
rebellious creature who aspired to be adored by the gods. 


Sapphic Verses. 95 

In this antique ode the suicidal poetess was supposed to 
have become enamored of Neptune. 

The lyre strings, which were of metal, were swept by 
the new Sappho, as if to wrench them asunder. Standing 
by an armchair, over which she towered as though it were 
a rock crag, she chanted in frenetic strains, with wailings 
in the minor key : 


SAPPHO TO NEPTUNE. 

“Oh, to plunge in the whirl of those waters! 

To hear of your sirens and tritons the chants! 

And to see circling swirls of your daughters, 

Who find in broad ocean full room for their dance! 

“Now, I peer at you, king, tempest-ruling. 

My voice, only human, fades cold on my lips; 

Where are words not to you puny — puling? 

You who with Leviathan toys as with ships? 

“Ah — as white as that foam, upwards seething, 

From billows your sheep, in a numberless drove, 

I pale — I spring to your arms — cease breathing, 

And die on that bosom, as vast as my love 1” 

This time she let the lyre slide from her grasp and 
reach the floor, while she succumbed upon the chair and 
let her head sink to rest on the back, as if floating away. 

The queen had turned from her conversation at the 
second verse, and now flew to the rescue as though her 
favorite were drifting off toward Neptune’s grotto. The 
rest were puzzled whether they ought to applaud as in 
a theatre at such an unwonted and classical performance, 
but, breaking all bounds, the men rushed to the center 
and were followed by the dames. As for Neptune, that is 
to say, Nelson, who might have his doubts that Hercu- 
laneum had aptly furnished these lines to suit the guest 
of the evening, he looked on, trembling beyond the others, 
but even more enamored. The queen, recovering, took 


96 Sapphic Verses. 

the fallen laurel wreath and placed it on the Briton’s 
brow. 

He snatched it off, as though it scorched his temples, 
and pressed it on his breast. At this juncture the hostess 
felt a hand venture to grasp her wrist ; it was Acton’s. 

“Come,” he whispered, “without an instant being lost ! 
Heaven has worked for us beyond our hopes !” 

“Ladies,” said the queen, “in my absence — for I am 
forced to go away a while — it is Lady Hamilton who is 
ruler here! In lieu of power I leave you genius and 
beauty.” 

Turning to Nelson, she whispered in his ear : 

“Ask her to dance the Shawl Dance, intended for me ; 
but she will do it at your request.” 

She followed Acton out, leaving Emma frenzied with 
pride, and Nelson mad with love. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


ONE LETTER IS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER. 

The queen had kept step with her confidant; for she 
was aware that only a grave matter would induce him 
to drag her away from her company. She wished to 
question him as soon as they were in the lobby, but he 
merely remarked : 

“For mercy’s sake, come quick ! We have no time to 
lose! In a few minutes you will know all.” 

He took a narrow stairway which led to the palace 
pharmacy. As the royal family have private physicians 
and surgeons, so they have a special drug store, for there 
must be no tampering with their medicines or adultera- 
tions. The royal doctors kept their drugs here for ac- 
cidents and illness, and Acton had free access to it. 

Guessing the destination, the queen inquired : 

“No mishap to the children (of the royal family, of 
course; in the palace there are no others) ?” 

“No, lady — be not alarmed! If we have an experi- 
ment to make it will be on the vulgar herd — in anima 
vili!” 

He opened the door of the store. The queen, entering, 
cast a rapid glance around. On a bed a man was lying, 
insensible. She approached with more curiosity than 
dread. 

“Ferrari!” she exclaimed. “Is he dead?” she de- 
manded, in the tone of saying: “Have you killed him?” 

“No, just stunned!” was Acton’s reply. 

The lady looked questioningly. 

“Great goodness, my lady; it is the simplest thing go- 


98 One Letter is as Good as Another. 

ing! As agreed, I sent my secretary to Capua, to ac- 
quaint the posting-master there that the king wished his 
courier, on the way home, to go to him at Caserta. Fer- 
rari only took the time to change his horse, but, reach- 
ing the archway of the palace entrance, something must 
have pierced the horse’s foot, for it threw him in its fall. 
The rider’s head struck the gateway guard-post, and 
when he was picked up senseless I ordered him to be taken 
to this temporary hospital and dispensed with the aid of 
a doctor, as I dabble in such matters myself.” 

“So, now,” said the conspirator, seizing her coadju- 
tor’s intention, “we have no need to talk him over or to 
bribe him. We do not fear his saying anything; as long 
as he dwells thus while we open and read his message, it 
is all ! But, you know, he must not awake while we are 
at work.” 

“I have given him twenty drops of laudanum.” 

“Is that enough for a courier accustomed to hard drink- 
ing?” 

“You may be right. I shall dose him with ten drops 
more.” 

He induced the unconscious man to swallow some 
soothing liquor. 

“He will not regain his wits ?” 

“Not enough to know what is going on.” 

Acton drew the dispatch from Ferrari’s vest. He put 
it to a candle, the heat of which gently softened the wax 
seal. This was the Emperor of Austria’s private seal, 
Marcus Aurelianus’ head. He handed his accomplice the 
open page and she read as follows: 

“Schoenbrunn Manor, this 28th of September, 1798. 
“Most Excellent Brother, Cousin and Uncle, Ally and 
“Confederate, Greeting: 

“I reply to your majesty with my own hand, as you 
wrote me. 


One Letter is as Good as Another. 99 

“My advice, in accord with the Aulic Council’s, is that 
we ought not to commence the war with France until we 
should have assembled all our chances of success. One 
that I may rely upon is the co-operation of forty thou- 
sand Russian troops, led by Field Marshal Suwarrow, 
whom I intend for the command of my forces. These 
cannot be here before the end of March. Therefore, 
temporize, dear brother, cousin and uncle; retard the 
opening of hostilities as much as you can. I do not believe 
that France is any more eager for the strife than we are. 
Profit by her pacific dispositions. Give any good reasons 
for your fencing, and we will go into the field with all 
our means, in April.” 

Then follows the usual epistolary flourish of emperors, 
and the name: “Francis.” 

“It is opposite to what I expected,” grumbled the lady. 

“Not so for me, madam,” rejoined Acton. “I never be- 
lieved they would rush in. Well, I am awaiting your 
orders.” 

“My orders are founded on my reasons for immediate 
war. But how in the face of such a letter?” 

“Let your majesty shoulder the responsibility of plun- 
ging into war, and — did you never hear of reading be- 
tween the lines of a letter ?” Acton asked. 

“Surely; but there is nothing between the lines of this 
one.” 

“There is none now, but paper is a passive agent and 
bears what is put upon it. Now, suppose that there is 
put upon it, between the lines, what would be the direct 
contrary of what did appear?” 

“Is that possible?” she queried, grasping her associate 
by the arm. 

“With an acid we can take out the body of the letter, 
leaving salutation and signature, and substitute the rec- 
ommendation to precipitate hostilities !” 

“What you propose is a grave matter, general !” 


ioo One Letter is as Good as Another. 


“That is why I said that only a queen could undertake 
such a responsibility.” 

The tempted one reflected shortly, her forehead pleat- 
ing, her eyebrows meeting, her hands clinching and her 
gaze hardening. 

“It is well. I undertake it,” said she. “To the work !” 

Acton attended to the sufferer, who had moaned. He 
felt his pulse and remarked : 

“He is good for two hours.” 

He motioned for his accomplice to hide in the window 
curtains while he rang for a smoothing iron and a chafing 
dish, with charcoal lit in it. It was his own man, his 
secretary, and not a domestic who served him. He bade 
him wait without. It being his confidential spirit, there 
was no need for the queen to hide ; but the secretary did 
not show that he noticed a third party when it was not 
visible on his first look in. 

“We shall need him to write the letter,” he explained. 
“The king knows our hands ; and it is his trade to write 
all caligraphy.” 

Acton set the flat-iron on the heater; took a phial of 
oxalic acid out of the closet and made a bath of some, 
which he spread upon the body of the letter with a quill, 
its feather end trimmed into a brush. The ink turned 
yellow, faded and disappeared. The amateur chemist, 
with a damp cloth, carefully removed any excess of acid. 
The sheet had become perfectly blank; he pressed it be- 
tween two sheets of plain paper and ironed it all as one 
would a handkerchief. 

“There! While it is drying into shape, let us frame 
the real reply of the Kaiser !” 

It was the queen who dictated, and this is the text : 

“Nothing could be more agreeable to me than the letter 
in which you offer to submit to me in all points. 

“News from Rome tells me that the French army be- 


One Letter is as Good as Another, ioi 


fore that city is in the most complete want ; the F rench 
army in upper Italy is in much the same state. 

“Charge yourself with deliverance from the one, my 
most excellent brother, cousin and uncle, ally and con- 
federate, while I charge the other. 

“As soon as I learn that you are at Rome, I will enter 
into the campaign with one hundred and forty thousand 
men. You say you have sixty thousand, and I expect 
forty thousand Russians. This makes more than suffi- 
cient for the next peace to be drawn up in Paris !” 

“How does that read?” asked the forger. 

“The Kaiser will never write so well !” was the reply. 

“All that we wait for is to have this set down in the 
facsimile 

The partly effaced letter being like new, Acton called 
in his scribe. 

“Dick, just get those words in on the blank in the 
writing of the first and subsequent standing parts.” 

The young man, without asking any questions or show- 
ing any astonishment, sat down by the table, took up his 
pen as if for the most ordinary task, executed the order, 
and rose to receive further instructions. 

Acton scrutinized the forgery by the candlelight. 
Nothing indicated the treachery committed. He put the 
letter in its wrapper, warmed the wax over the heat, and 
smearing the seal spot with some fresh wax, stamped it 
with a seal, previously copied from the emperor’s. He 
put this paper in the messenger’s vest pocket, and exam- 
ined his patient by the candle rays, attending to the head 
wound for the first time. It was a bad blow ; the cut of 
the skin was two inches long, but there was no fracture. 

“Dick, mark what I say. Send for a doctor at the 
San Marco Hospital. It will take an hour for him to 
come. During that time administer to this man about a 
wineglassful of raw coffee boiled. It will bring him 


102 One Letter is as Good as Another. 


round, but the doctor will assume that he had ether or 
smelling salts tried on him, and you will let him so be- 
lieve. He will dress his wound and, according to its se- 
verity, he will be sent on his journey on horseback or in 
a carriage.” 

“Yes, your excellency.” 

“The poor fellow,” Acton continued, dwelling on each 
word, “was picked up after his fall by the servants here, 
carried into the pharmacy by your direction, and cared for 
by you and the local practitioner. Consequently, neither 
the queen nor I saw anything of him. You understand?” 

“I do, your excellency.” 

“Whereupon,” went on Acton, turning to his royal 
principal, “you can let events go on of themselves and 
without any uneasiness return into the drawing-room, 
for all will be executed as laid down.” 

The lady watched the secretary out, and remarked, as 
the door closed after him: “You have a valuable fellow 
there, general!” 

“He is not so much mine as yours, your majesty, like all 
under me.” 

He bowed to let the lady pass him by. 

When the queen retook her place, Emma Lyonna, 
wound in an Indian shawl fringed with gold, amid en- 
thusiastic applause from her audience, was concluding a 
step by falling on a sofa with the reckless affectation of 
ease of a prima ballerina ; no professional dancer had ever 
lifted her beholders to that seventh heaven; the ring 
around her when she began had, by insensible attraction, 
contracted, as if every one wished to feel the whirls of 
air and perfume which she sent forth. But gasping: 
“Room, room!” she had dropped on the divan, where 
the hostess found her. 

On seeing the latter the throng parted to let her go 
-*p to her favorite. 


One Letter is as Good as Another. 103 

The clapping and “encores” redoubled, as all knew that 
a way to the royal favor was to compliment her protegee. 

“-From what I see, it strikes me that Lady Hamilton 
has kept her promise. And then she has earned her re- 
pose; for it is one in the morning, and I thank you for 
having forgotten that Caserta is several miles out of the 
town.” 

This was plainly a starting signal. All the entertain- 
ments of the evening were praised in one burst of ad- 
miration ; the hostess gave her hand to be kissed by her 
nearest friends, but retained Nelson and his two com- 
panions. 

She called the Marchioness of San Clemente to her, and 
said : 

“My dear Elena, your day of service would be in a 
day — that is, it being morning, to-morrow — but the 
Countess San Marco, having some business next week to 
do, has begged to take your day now, to have a holiday 
then. So you have the day off!” 

“Oh, I thank your majesty — I may profit by this to go 
down to our country seat with my lord !” 

“Good! That is exemplary!” 

She bowed to the lady of honor, who, being the last, 
courtesied and departed. Her mistress was alone with 
Acton, Lady Hamilton, and Nelson and his brother offi- 
cers. 

“My dear lord,” she said to the admiral, “I may con- 
jecture that in a couple of days the king will receive 
news from Vienna, which will suit your ideas on the 
crisis, for I am supposing that you are of the opinion 
that the sooner we are in active warfare, the better?” 

“I am not merely of the opinion, but if it be adopted I 
shall be ready to support it, with the English fleet help- 
ing,” replied Nelson. 

“Good; but that is not what I detained you to say. 


104 One Letter is as Good as Another. 

The king, I am aware, has trust in you. However fa- 
vorable to war may be the Vienna news due, he may still 
waver. But a note from your lordship, in the same 
tone as the emperor’s, would remove his irresolution.” 

“Should such a letter be addressed to the king?” 

“Why, no! I know my august spouse. He is by no 
means disposed to following advice directly given. I 
should like it better if it came from a letter confidentially 
addressed to Lady Hamilton. Ah ! write collectively to 
her and Sir William ! Happy idea ! To her as my best 
friend — to Sir William as the king’s best friend. This 
double shot will tell more surely !” 

“Your majesty knows that I am neither diplomatist nor 
politician,” was the seaman’s response. “My letter would 
be a blunt man’s writing, straight, though with the left 
hand, frank and bluff, what I think, and nothing shorter !” 

“It is all I beg, admiral. Besides, as you will return to 
town with the captain-general, you can talk it over. 
Come to dinner, as there will be something to discuss, I 
promise! We will have Baron Mack to table, too, so 
that you may concert something.” 

The Englishman bowed. 

“It will be quite a family party!” pursued the hostess. 
“Sir William and his lady will be there. I would return 
to town to-night, only my poor Emma is too tired out. 
Of course, you saw, admiral,” proceeded the lady, lower- 
ing her voice, “that it was for you, and you alone, that 
she said, and sang and did all those splendid acts which 
you saw and heard. Shakespeare to those Italians! 
Pearls, indeed, before porkers! Ha, ha!” She added, 
in a still lower key: “She would have stubbornly held 
me off, but I assured her that the English piece would 
ravish you! All her native ‘strong-headedness’ — that’s 
a word of hers — fell before that plea.” 


One Letter is as Good as Another. 105 

“Oh, my lady, to talk like that!” protested the blush- 
ing Emma. 

“Do not turn scarlet, but give your hand to our noble 
hero! I would willingly give him mine, but I am sure 
he prefers yours, and, besides, these gentlemen are wait- 
ing for mine.” 

She held out both her hands to the English officers, 
while their superior, seizing Emma’s with more passion 
than court etiquette permitted, carried it to his lips. 

“Is that true, what the queen says,” he demanded in 
an undertone, “that it was for me that you consented to 
play and sing and dance — that dance which made me 
furious with jealousy?” 

The charmer looked at him as well she knew how to 
look at him whom she wished to deprive wholly of rea- 
son ; and with a tone more enthralling than was her gaze, 
she answered, in their tongue, become more melodious 
than Italian itself : 

“What an ungrateful dog you are to ask that!” 

A footman announced that the captain-general’s car- 
rige stopped the way. 

Acton looked at the others, who bowed. 

“Any particular orders?” inquired Acton, covertly, of 
the queen. 

“Yes, indeed! At nine to-night, the three state in- 
quisitions to be in the dark chamber !” 

The confidant retired with his companions, who had 
passed over the sill, and the queen, throwing her arms 
around Emma with the exaggeration she infused into all 
her actions, exclaimed : 

“What bores those men are! They never let us poor 
women have five minutes for ourselves!” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE KING ENACTS PILATE. 

It was the beginning of October, and the king was sit- 
ting in his cabinet, still without intelligence from Vienna. 
He was delighted by any interruption to his dullness and 
particularly so when the interruption was due to his coun- 
selor, Cardinal Ruffo, being announced. 

“Well, my most eminent/’ he cried out. “No news ! 
Ferrari, contrary to his wont, is some hours behind. So 
I sent for you to beguile the time, thinking, like a selfish 
devil, that I might kill time with you while time will kill 
me by myself.” 

“You were quite right, sire. Crossing the yard, I spied 
a horse led to the stable, streaming with sweat, and saw 
the rider, too, supported between two. This man pain- 
fully climbed up the stairs this way. By his riding boots, 
leather breeches and ‘frogged’ jacket, I believed I iden- 
tified the poor courier we expect. Some mishap has be- 
fallen him.” 

A lackey appeared at the door. 

“Sire,” he said, “the messenger, Antonio Ferrari, has 
arrived, and waits in your study for your majesty to re- 
ceive his dispatches.” 

Without inquiring whether the bearer of the expected 
reply was hurt or not, Ferdinand© swiftly, went up the 
back stairs and was installed in his study, with Ruffo. 

Ferrari, lame with his hurt, still upheld between two 
servants, had just reached the sill; he was colorless and 
his head was bound with a blood-soaked bandage. On 
perceiving his master, as if that sight restored his powers, 


107 


The King Enacts Pilate. 

Ferrari pushed aloof the sustainers and took three for- 
ward steps. While the helpers retired and shut the door 
after them, he drew the message out of the inner pocket 
with his right hand, while he saluted the monarch with 
the other. 

“Good !” exclaimed the king, taking the letter and 
speaking thus by way of thanks, “my jolterhead of a 
rough rider has run so as to be ready to drop !” 

“Sire,” remonstrated the courier, “your majesty knows 
well that there is not a horse in your kingdom able to 
throw me fair; but the nag tripped on something and 
balked at the many carriages blocking my way in, and 
when a steed goes down, a good rider goes down with 
it.” 

“Where were there many carriages blocking your 
way ?” 

“Caserta Manor gateway, sire.” 

“What plague took you into Caserta?” 

“The Capua posting-master told me you were there.” 

“So I was ; but I quitted it at seven in the evening,” 
grumbled the king. 

The cardinal noticed that the courier was pale and 
reeling. 

“Sire, if this questioning is to go on, pray let the man 
have a seat, or he will fall ill.” 

“Oh, very well. Take a chair, you dolt !” 

The prelate rolled an armchair to the messenger, and 
in full time, for he would have fallen his length on the 
floor; he dropped into the chair, as it was. The other 
eyed this with amazement at so much kindness being 
shown to a mere servant, and, taking the cardinal aside, 
said : 

“Do you mark that he talks of Caserta? Caserta, 
mind ! How did this happen ?” 

“The queen was giving an evening party,” replied the 


io8 The King Enacts Pilate. 

luckless one. 'The courtyard was crammed with ve- 
hicles ; the horse made a slip, and I was hurled against 
a wheel guard.” 

"Humph !” muttered the king, turning the missive over 
and over again in his hands as if flinching from opening 
it. "Is this from the emperor?” 

"Straight, sire; I was delayed a couple of hours, as 
the emperor was at his country place.” 

"Let us see what my nephew has to say, eminence ” 

"If you will allow me to give this man a glass of water 
and lend him this bottle of ammonia, unless your majesty 
will approve of his being put to bed. In that case I will 
call for the domestic to do it ?” 

“No, no! I may want to question him.” 

There was a scratching at the door and a series of 
yelps. Jupiter had discovered that his trainer was home 
and he wanted to welcome his friend, for Ferdinando was 
only his master. Ferrari, recognizing his pet, also, me- 
chanically held out his hand to the door. 

“Will you stop your noise?” thundered Ferdinando, 
stamping. 

Ferrari let his hand fall. 

"Sire,” risked Ruffo, "will you not allow the two 
friends to greet each other as they said good-by on part- 
ing?” 

Reckoning that the dog’s presence would do as much 
good as salts or water, the prelate took advantage of the 
king being enrapt in his letter, of which he had broken 
the seal, to open the door to Jupiter. As if guessing that 
he owed the favor to a distraction, he crawled around the 
king as far as possible, to get to Ferrari, and then sneaked 
to the back of his chair, where he twisted his head around 
so as to lick his pendant hand surreptitiously. 

The cardinal was called to read the letter, and the king 
turned to the bearer, 


lot; 


The King Enacts Pilate. 

“It was the emperor himself who wrote that?” 

“I do not know that, but he handed it to me.” 

“Nobody has handled it since?” 

“I’ll take my oath !” 

“It has not left your possession, eh?” 

“It was in my pocket when I was stunned, and all right 
when I came around.” 

“You were stunned, though?” 

“I could not help that, as the shock was violent.” 

“What was done to you, then?” 

“I was carried into the little ’potecary shop they have at 
the Manor. Master Richard took care of that and me.” 

“I do not know any Master Richard in my place — who 
is he?” 

“Lord Acton’s secretary, whom he calls ‘Dick’ — that 
is, short for Richard, though I do not see how.” 

“Nor I. But who dressed your wound?” 

“A doctor from the nearest hospital, for you had your 
medical attendants with you. I saw nobody but him and 
Richard.” 

Ruffo came over. 

“The letter is formal,” he remarked. “The news the 
emperor had from Rome tallies with ours. He says that 
if your majesty will tackle General Championnet’s army 
he will do the same with General Joubert’s.” 

“Yes, and see ! He adds that as soon as I reach Rome 
he will cross the frontier with a hundred and forty thou- 
sand men.” 

“The figure is positive.” 

“The body of the letter is not in Francis’ hand!” ob- 
served Ferdinando, distrustfully. 

“No? Oh, some secretary’s, as usual ! But the saluta- 
tion and signature are his. His majesty may easily have 
a trustworthy secretary to whom he may intrust this se- 
cret.” 


i io The King Enacts Pilate. 

Ferdinando took the letter again and fumbled with it. 

“Tush ! The seal is the right one — I would know that 
head of Mark Antony anywhere.” 

“Marcus Aurelianus, your majesty means.” 

“Are they not much the same ?” 

“Not so much,” and the priest smiled; “but that is not 
the point. The writing is the Kaiser’s as far as it goes, 
and the signature ; in all conscience, you can ask no more. 
Any questions for the bearer?” 

“No; let him be cared for.” He turned aside. 

“And men go and get killed for kings !” commented the 
cardinal, going over to ring the bell which brought a foot- 
man. 

“Let us have the two lusty fellows in who helped Fer- 
rari,” said he. 

“Thank your eminency, but I have come around and I 
can get to my room by myself.” 

Ferrari indeed scrambled to the upright, bowed to the 
king and staggered over to the entrance, followed by Ju- 
piter. But the king called the dog, which only partially 
obeyed, for it went as far as the door, but there, stop- 
ping with a whimper, turned and slunk under the king’s 
table. 

“What is this dunce hanging about here for?” de- 
manded the king, regarding the lingering footman. 

“Please, your majesty,” returned the man with a shiver; 
“it’s his excellency, Sir William Hamilton, who asks to 
know if your majesty will give him a hearing.” 

“Of course ! You know I receive him at any time.” 

“Should I be off?” inquired the cardinal, seeing the 
man go. 

“Not at all. Stay, for the solemnity of this request in- 
dicates an official stamp, and I may be glad to have your 
eminence by to confer on the audience.” 

The English ambassador was announced. 


The King Enacts Pilate. 1 1 1 

“Mum !” whispered the monarch, showing the imperial 
letter before hiding it in his fob. 

The private counselor nodded as much as to say that 
the caution was useless. 

Hamilton came in and bowed to the king and his com- 
panion. 

“Welcome, Sir William ! All the more welcome, as I 
thought you were out at Caserta.” 

“I was, sire; but the queen did us the honor, my lady 
and me, to bring us in, in her own carriage.” 

“Ah, the queen’s come back ?” 

“Yes, sire.” 

“Been here long?” 

“Just arrived; and having a communication to make 
to your majesty ” 

Ferdinando winked to his ecclesiastical ally. 

“Secret ?” he asked. 

“It depends,” was the diplomatic response. 

“I presume it hinges on this war?” queried the king. 

“Precisely, it does concern this war.” 

“In that case you may disclose before his eminence. It 
is the very topic we were discussing when you were an- 
nounced.” 

Sir William and the rival statesman bowed, a thing 
they never did when they could avoid it. 

“Well,” resumed Hamilton, “Lord Nelson was at the 
party last night, and as it broke up he handed my lady 
and myself a letter which I feel bound to impart to your 
majesty.” 

“In English, I judge?” 

“Lord Nelson has no other tongue, but I can translate 
it into Italian if desired. 

“We listen !” And the king made a sign of attention 
to Ruffo to doubly justify the plural. 

The admiral pleaded that the long interest of the Ham- 


112 


The King Enacts Pilate. 

iltons in the royal family induced him to write to them. 
He had but a brief time to study the situation, but it was 
clear that the Sicilians detested the French and their doc- 
trines as heartily as they loved the rulers and their prin- 
ciples. He regretted that dangers were allowed to ac- 
cumulate through the policy of delay. He hoped that 
General Mack’s arrival would lead to the government 
sending the army forward. 

However, if disaster unfortunately did befall, he offered 
his ships to embark the royal family and their treasures. 

But he hoped that the inspiriting words of William 
Pitt would enter the Neapolitan ministers’ heads, and that 
they would see that the boldest steps were the surest. 

“That is a letter to be meditated upon,” observed the 
sovereign. Then he muttered to Ruffo : “They seem all 
in one cry !” 

“And a very good one !” was his reply. 

“And do you sincerely advise this war, cardinal?” 

“I believe that if the emperor keeps his promise, and if 
Nelson strictly guards our coasts, it would be better for 
us to attack and defeat the French than have them sur- 
prise and defeat us.” 

“You want war? Nelson wants war?” asked the king 
of the Englishman. 

“At least he counsels it with the warmth of sincere and 
unalterable devotedness.” 

“And you, too, want it?” inquired the monarch, di- 
rectly. 

“As envoy of England, I answer that in saying so I 
second my gracious sovereign’s desires.” 

“Cardinal,” pursued the king, pointing to his toilet 
table, equipped with a wash hand-basin, and a silver pipe 
with faucet for running water, “do me the pleasure to 
fill that bowl and let me have it at hand.” 

The arch-priest obeyed without any observation and 


The King Enacts Pilate. 1 1 3 

presented the filled basin to the requirer. He had rolled 
up his sleeves and, with a good deal of pother, laved and 
rubbed his hands in a kind of fury. 

“Does Sir William see what I am doing?” he asked. 

“I see, but I do not see the explanation perfectly.” 
“Well, here you have the explanation : Like Pontius 
Pilate, I wash my hands of it!” 


CHAPTER XV. 


A NEPHEW IN THE HAND. 

The queen’s own inquisitors, whose names remain ex- 
ecrated in Naples, and ought to be bracketed with Jef- 
fries for posterity, were the Prince of Castelcicala, Gui- 
dobaldi and Vanni. 

The prince, highest in rank and consequently the lowest 
in degradation, was ambassador at London when the 
queen called him home, in her need of a great name to 
cover her private vengeances. He understood that there 
was more to gain by demeaning himself than by noble 
conduct and calculated all that might accrue to one who 
served royal hatred. From peer he became spy, and from 
ambassador, executioner. 

Guidobaldi had neither risen nor descended by his of- 
fice; iniquitous judge and prevaricating magistrate, he 
remained the same wretch; only he operated on a larger 
scale. 

But dreaded and abhorred as were Castelcicala and 
Judge Guidobaldi, they were less dreaded and detested 
than Fiscal Proctor Vanni. 

There is no comparison for him in the human kind ; he 
hunted down his prey like a police officer ; after spying to 
make up a case against him, he tried him, to doom him. 
He was wolf and hyena, morally and bodily. Vanni was 
not content with lodging the accused in horrid prisons, 
but pressed on after more to encage. If the parents 
sought his release, that entreaty doubled the captive’s 
woes. If they appealed to the ruler, it was not so much 
a useless act as dangerous, since then he appealed to the 


A Nephew in the Hand. 1 1 5 

queen, and she never pardoned if her husband did, some- 
times. 

Once Vanni was appointed inquisitor, he cried out on 
the housetops that all conspirators must be imprisoned 
or he would not answer for the safety of the royal family. 
Whenever he saw the queen, he was on the brink of a 
catastrophe — the eve of a massacre in the palace. 

As in three years of this terror the stuffed prisons re- 
vealed no guilt, Vanni had recourse to torture to obtain 
some result. Not ordinary torture, as if any torment 
were ordinary; but to use his own words, accompanied 
with one of those laughs which twisted his mouth, when 
he felt he would have his own way : 

“Such pangs as a corpse might feel !” 

The other judges revolted at this, and this unanimity 
was the deliverance of the prisoners and Vanni’s down- 
fall. But on the dissolution of the junta , Vanni dropped 
into the fiscal proctor’s chair. 

The queen held out her hand to him and created him a 
marquis. Out of the three rejected by the bench and the 
public, she constituted a secret tribunal, her own private 
judgment seat, trying in solitude, striking in the dark, 
but with the poisoned dagger rather than the headsman’s 
sword. 

We have seen how the retriever, Pasquale, among these 
hounds stuck at nothing. We shall look on at Guido- 
baldi, Castelcicala and Vanni at work. 

The three inquisitors sat at the table in the dark cham- 
ber, gloomy and restless, illumined by the bronze lamp, 
but the shade fell on their faces, so that they could not be 
recognized from the other end of the table, even if their 
presence were known. 

The queen’s summons perturbed them ; what if a clev- 
erer spy than they had discovered a well-based plot ? 


1 1 6 A Nephew in the Hand. 

Without confiding in one another, they were revolving 
this in their mind, anxiously awaiting for the door from 
the royal apartments to be opened, when their mistress 
appeared. 

From time to time they had cast quick and moody 
glances into the darkest corner where Pasquale was 
standing. Perhaps he stood closer than they in the 
queen’s confidence. But though they gave him orders, 
they durst not question him. His presence showed that it 
was a portentous matter. 

Even in their eyes, Di Simone was more dreadful than 
Master Donato, the executioner. That was the secret 
and mysterious one ; the one carried out the law, the other 
the queen’s grudges. 

If the queen’s good will ceased to hold Castelcicala and 
company as her faithful ones, still she could not pass 
them over to the law, as they knew too much; but she 
could point them out to Pasquale with the gesture which 
signifies cutting a throat. All they knew and might say 
would not only fail to save them, but would enhance the 
doom. A stab scientifically applied between the sixth and 
seventh left rib — all was spoken. The ruinous secrets 
would die with the man whose last sigh would be to the 
passer-by, at a few steps off, just a puff of wind, a trifle 
more sad than the others. 

At the last vibration of nine o’clock from the clock 
which had startled Carolina on her lonely visit, she ap- 
peared. 

The three state inquisitors rose like one man and ad- 
vanced, saluting her. She carried divers objects under 
a red shawl, worn more like a mantle. Pasquale did not 
stir; his rigid outline remained glued against the wall 
like a tapestry figure. 


A Nephew in the Hand. 1 1 7 

The queen spoke without giving time for the trium- 
virate to utter their homage. 

“This time, Signor Vanni,” she said, “it is not you who 
hold the clew or are following the track of a conspiracy, 
but I. Apter than you who arrest the culprits without 
having the evidence to convict them by, I bring the fatal 
proof and the means to find the guilty.” 

“Yet we do not fail in zeal!” ventured the slighted 
judge. 

“No; for those you arraign say you have too much of 
it!” 

“That can never be when your majesty is in question!” 
protested the prince. 

“Never!” echoed Guidobaldi. 

Approaching the board, the lady opened her shawl so 
as to remove from under it a brace of pistols and a letter 
red stained. They watched her do this with the highest 
astonishment. 

“Be seated, gentlemen,” said she. “Marquis Vanni, 
take up the pen and write the instructions I shall give 
you.” 

The judges being seated and she standing, wrapped in 
her purple shawl like a Roman empress, she dictated the 
following words : 

“On the night of the twenty-second of September last, 
there was a meeting of patriots, as they style themselves, 
in the ruins called Queen Joanna’s palace. They were 
awaiting intelligence from the French headquarters, 
which is sufficiently treasonable proceedings, I take it. 
This messenger came by boat, and after their conference 
he was brought into the town and left, with his destina- 
tion the residence of the French Embassy. On his lonely 
way he was struck down ” 

“Struck down !” was the triple outcry. 


n 8 A Nephew in the Hand. 

“You may call it murdered, if you please.” 

“By whom?” demanded Vanni. 

“That is none of your business,” said the queen, in a 
chilling voice. “We have no reason to pursue the as- 
sassins.” 

Vanni saw that he was off the route, and was hushed. 

“Before falling, this mesenger from the French used 
a sword which is in that closet yonder and these firearms 
which you see, on his assailants and to fair purpose. The 
sword, you may see for yourselves, is of French make. 
These pistols, though, come out of the royal armory ; the 
mark of ‘C.’ is presumably that of the owner’s family.” 

Not a breath interrupted the speaker; they might be 
marble. 

“I tell you the messenger wore a French army regula- 
tion sword and he probably wore a French army uniform 
when he landed, but he was reclothed by his friends, our 
unfaithful subjects. In particular, his outer coat was a 
stylish one, in the pocket of which was forgotten a love 
letter.” 

“This love letter is signed merely with an ‘E.,’ ” com- 
mented Castelcicala, who had looked at the paper. 

“It is written by the Marchioness of San Clemente, one 
of my ladies,” went on the royal denunciatress with a sin- 
gular smile, seeing a grim joke in Elena being a “lady of 
honor.” “And the addressee is a Caracciolo. Now, lis- 
ten !” 

The three leaned and stretched over the board, so that 
their heads came within the circle of light suddenly. 

“I have given my lady a day free, so that it is likely 
she will meet her loving Caracciolo to-morrow. Do you 
understand what should ensue, gentlemen?” 

Their eyes dwelt on her still so inquiringly that she felt 
that she was not followed. 


ii9 


A Nephew in the Hand. 

“It is simple, though!” she sneered. “Pasquale shall 
attend the rendezvous, which will probably be at a strange 
house, for a San Clemente would not make such trysts in 
her own mansion, lady of honor that she is. Pasquale 
then will fall on the lover ” 

“Slay a Caracciolo !” exclaimed the prince with all his 
aristocratic blood curdling. “Arrest him without doing 
him any harm. Di Simone’s fellows will convey him to 
St. Elmo Castle, charging the governor to bestow him 
in the surest cell. If he consents to name his accom- 
plices, who carry on correspondence with the French com- 
mander, all will go smoothly. If he refuses, that will fall 
into your province, Signor Vanni. You would be a stupid 
tribunal if you cannot extract evidence, and you may tor- 
ture him as one may a cadaver. Is this clear, gentlemen ? 
Am I not a good lime-hound when I meddle with un- 
earthing conspirators ?” 

“There is the stamp of genius in all the queen does!” 
chirped Vanni. “Any further orders?” 

“None. Put the pieces of evidence together, and the 
Lord preserve ye !” 

The queen waved them to go out and, saluting low, 
they left her alone with the agent of their decrees. As 
the door closed, she beckoned him and he came forth with 
the width of the table only between them. She flung a 
purse, weighty with coin, on the board. 

“Have you heard?” she familiarly asked. 

“Yes, majesty!” the police officer replied, snatching up 
the reward, and thanking with a bow.” 

“At this hour to-morrow report to me here.” 

On the morrow she learned that the lover of Elena, 
Marchioness San Clemente, was Nicolini Caracciolo, and, 
arrested quietly, he had been as quietly placed in St. 
Elmo fort and locked up. 


120 


A Nephew in the Hand. 

“Ah!” she cried, exultantly, “the brother of the Duke 
of Bocca Romana, and nephew of the admiral. Oh, if we 
have the good luck to find the admiral compromised in 
this conspiracy with the Jacobins abroad and especially 
the Jacobins at home!” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE BACKWARD JOURNEY. 

As we have no intention of making ourselves the his- 
torian of the campaign to Rome, we will let a few lines 
from history join our narration. 

A fortnight after the arrest of the young Caracciolo 
and the other events related, on one of those fine autumn 
days which to the Neapolitans are what summer days are 
to other climes, the royal army was reviewed before it 
went into camp under the orders of General Mack and 
the native officers, representing the most illustrious houses. 
Shouts of “Our king forever!” “Long live Nelson!” 
“Brava, England!” and “Death to the French!” roared 
like gusts of gathering tempest. 

Ferdinando made a speech, for the first time addressing 
the mob directly, telling of his love for them, vaunting 
his race, appealing to their courage and intrusting his 
wife .and family to them. 

Since the battle of Velletri, in 1744, assuring the throne 
to Carlo III., the Naples people had heard no great guns 
fired in earnest, and they believed they were the greatest 
warriors in creation. 

So Ferdinando became the idol of the throng. 

At the San Germano camp, whence the true departure 
would take place, the queen and the inseparable Lady 
Hamilton, both wearing riding habits, and mounted on 
fiery steeds to have their equestrian skill admired, passed 
the review of the first army corps. With all means of 
inspiring animation — double pay, wine free, fine talk and 


122 The Backward Journey. 

warm smiles — the court quitted the soldiery with augury 
of victory. 

At the last stage of the grand advance, the French re- 
ceding much like a retreat, Mack left the king, not to 
draw him into the combat, and soon sent a letter stating 
that he had the foe at his mercy and would immediately 
expel him from the states of Church and Rome. 

At Corneto, the king could hear cannon, and he said : 

“That is Mack, crushing Championnet. The dancing 
has begun !” 

So he went to the playhouse, offering an attraction of 
his own to the audience. He had it trumpeted that be- 
tween the opera and the ballet he would eat macaroni 
as he did on gala occasions at Naples. This promise 
crammed the house. 

The king listened to the opera heedlessly, more atten- 
tive to the expected arrival of couriers from his general 
to tell him of the progress of the undoubted victory. 

When his turn came for his little interlude, he stepped 
to the front of his box. With his pantomime, like a 
Neapolitan, he signified that he was going to show them, 
how Punch (Pulcinello) eats macaroni by the mile. The 
Romans received this mimic introduction with some cool- 
ness ; but the confident, real glutton made a grin and nod 
to signify : “You do not know what you are going to see; 
but when you shall have seen, you will wish yourselves 
joy!” 

He turned to the Duke of Ascoli and muttered : “There 
is no opposition clique in the house, is there ?” 

“If one, it will be an enemy won over to your side,” 
replied the astute courtier. 

So the king thanked his flatterer with a smile, took a 
platter of macaroni in one hand and, standing well for- 
ward, mixed the golden tomato sauce and paste, actually 
with his hand, and the scientific blend attained, opened an 


The Backward Journey. 123 

immeasurable mouth, into which, still unassisted by spoon 
or fork, he flung a cascade of macaroni. 

At sight, the Romans, though grave and having pre- 
served a high notion of royal dignity, burst into laughter. 
This was no longer a ruler of the state, but the buffoon 
Osco Pulcinello. Encouraged by this merriment, which 
h took for applause, the gourmand had already gulped 
down a portion of the mess and was preparing to engulf 
the rest, when the stage-box door opened with a crash, not 
at all according to etiquette, so that he spun around, his 
jaws open and his dripping hand held up. He wished to 
glare at the blunderer who allowed himself to disturb him 
in so important a display. 

It was General Mack in person. 

He was ghostly white, covered with dust, and fright- 
ened. Without asking the news he brought, the king let 
the dish fall and wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. 

“Have the French ?” 

“They have!” 

Both understood. 

In plain words, the Neapolitans had met the French. 
The latter had beaten Mack, with a fraction of his forces 
in number. The Italians lost three thousand dead, as 
many wounded, five thousand prisoners; and with eight 
thousand muskets and thirty pieces of cannon, the mili- 
tary chest was the Republican’s prize — two wagonloads 
of gold. The English loan paid the French arrears in 
their woe-begone army ! 

The king backed into the retiring-room attached to the 
box and shut himself in with his invincible strategist. 

“Sire,” stammered the latter, “I left the battlefield and 
the army to come myself to acquaint your majesty that 
there is not a moment to be lost in quitting Rome !” 

“Quit Rome?” 


124 The Backward Journey. 

“Or else the French will outstrip us in the Abruzzi 
passes.” 

“The French outspeed us to the Passes? San Gennaro 
have mercy ! Ascoli !” 

The duke came in. 

“Let all the court keep their places to the end of the 
spectacle, mind ! It is urgent that they should be seen, so 
nothing askew should be suspected. But, you, come 
along with me.” 

The order was transmitted to the officials, who were 
fretting about what had happened, though far from sus- 
pecting the real occurrence, and the duke rejoined his 
master, already in the corridor, faltering: 

“Ascoli ! Ascoli ! Why don’t you hurry, you fool ! Did 
you not hear the unconquerable General Mack say that 
there is no time to spare or those French beauties will be 
ahead of us at Sora?” 

The Austrian Bombastes had grounds for fearing the 
rapidity of the French army. On the night of their vic- 
tory they pushed on to prevent the fugitives from getting 
through the gap in the Abruzzi Mountains. 

Meanwhile, the king had bundled the duke and the gen- 
eral into his carriage at the theatre door and drove off. 
He remembered that the Jacobins had vowed that if they 
caught him, crowned as was his head, they would hang 
him at the first lamp-post, an end more plebeian than 
his cousin Louis of France’s, who had only been beheaded 
by the guillotine, emblem of equality, before death. 

At the Farnese palace, a courier was seeking the king. 
He bore a dispatch from the Emperor of Austria. The 
king opened it on the spot and read: “Let me felicitate 
you on the success of your army and your triumphal en- 
trance into Rome!” 

The king read no further, but stuffed the paper in his 
bosom. 


The Backward Journey. 125 

“That is what they call coming in at the nick!” mut- 
tered he ; but he gave the bearer a gold piece. 

The grinning man asked if he would have to bear back 
any answer. 

“Certainly, but I have no time to write. Have I, Baron 
Mack?” 

The hero of war, on maps, hung his head. 

“Never mind, I have a good memory,” remarked the 
messenger. 

“Then, if you are sure of carrying my words to your 
august master without changing a syllable, say to him that 
his cousin, brother, uncle, godfather and the rest of the 
titles, King Ferdinando, to wit, is an ASS !” 

The royal courier drew back aghast. 

“Don’t change a syllable and you will repeat one of the 
greatest truths that ever crossed your lips !” 

The rider retired stupor-stricken. 

Mack had meditated during this episode. He said that 
as the Roman campaign might not be safe for a carriage 
which, besides, would have to stick to the roads, it would 
be better to take the saddle. The king was a good rider. 
They need go only as far as Albano, where they could 
have a post-chaise. 

As the monarch was in silk stockings, they had to find 
riding-boots and a horseman’s cloak for him. 

At Ripetta town-end, they saw a frantic mob jamming 
up the people’s gate. 

The king stopped Mack’s horse by seizing the reins. 

“Hello, general,” said he. “What is all that rush?” 

“If thirty miles could be run in five hours, I should say 
that they were your majesty’s soldiers on the run!” 

“That is just what they are ! I know my hares ! 
When they are running out of battle they have wings to 
their heels !” 

Muffling his mantle oyer his eyes, the sovereign passed 


126 


The Backward Journey. 

through his unsuspicious warriors. At San Giovanni 
gate, where the king had been presented with the city keys 
with great pomp a few days previously, Mack left him to 
go on to Albano, while he hastened back to his forces. 

“Lord preserve your majesty !” were his parting words. 

“And Old Nick fly away with you, you imbecile mut- 
tered the other, burying the spurs in his horse. 

It will be observed that, since the state council, the 
potentate had not altered his opinion of the illustrious 
planner of campaigns. 

All along this doleful ride, the fugitive was in a panic. 
He kept asking Ascoli if he did not see this or that terror, 
and with his ruling cynicism, added : 

“I told Mack that I was not sure about my bravery. 
Well, I am sure now ; I am not brave !” 

At Albano the posting-house was shut up ; but the duke 
pronounced the magic words which open every door : 
“You will be well paid !” The result was that they were 
offered, not all they desired, but all the host could give. 

The cab would have to do, but the room for which the 
king asked was still an easier matter. 

“I wonder that your majesty is wasting so much time,” 
ventured Ascoli, who did not desire rests. 

“Did you not hear that the Jacobins threaten to hang 
me if they seize me? Well, to disappoint them in that 
intention, which would make them lose any prospect of 
a lot in paradise which they have not forfeited, let us 
shift clothes.” 

“So if they overtake us, they will hang me in your 
coat?” 

“You hit it! While they think they are handling the 
king, they will not bother about me, his hanger-on! If 
you run a danger, well, you still will have saved your 
monarch,” 


The Backward Journey. 127 

“The danger is not the point — it is to serve your maj- 
esty.” 

He stripped off his coat. Though so profoundly selfish, 
the other was touched by this devotedness ; he clapped 
his friend on the shoulder and then, taking off his gar- 
ments as far as necessary, they played the valet to each 
other. 

“Now for the trimmings,” said the king, jocularly. 

And he took off his decorations and placed them on the 
other, like the most expert court costumer. 

“You are entitled to the Maria Theresa Order, are you 
not?” 

“I have not that honor.” 

“I will remind my brother of Austria to give you the 
collar. Remind me if I should forget it — I do miss such 
things !” 

“Yes, your majesty is forgetful!” remarked the duke, 
sharply. 

“Don’t throw my faults up to me at this time! You 
belong to the St. Januarius Order, of course?” 

“Not yet.” 

“That’s a shame ! I give it to you in giving you my 
badge herewith! You have well won it! Oh, how well 
you look in that coat ! It might be made for you !” 

“But the badge is set in diamonds — worth some six 
thousand ducats !” 

“I would it would fetch ten, now ! But is it not droll ? 
I am much at ease in your coat — the other stifled me. 
Ah !” 

They heard steps coming. The king threw his cloak on 
the other’s shoulders. 

The postmaster entered to announce the readiness of 
the vehicle. He was astonished at the transformation in 
the travelers, and observed the stouter man arranging the 
traveling cloak about the second. 


128 The Backward Journey. 

“His excellency,” said the king, as if proud of his 
master or companion, “does not like any bother on the 
road. So he wishes to pay all expenses beforehand.” 

“Nothing goes better than that,” replied the host. 
“Eight stages, two relays, fourteen ducats in all. How 
much does your excellencies give the postboys?” 

“A ducat, if they keep up the pace. But you do nof 
catch old travelers paying the postboys in advance, since 
then they do not ride steady.” 

“If you will stand them a ducat drink money, your ex- 
cellency will go as if they conducted the king!” 

“Exactly, I would like his excellency to go as if the 
king !” 

“Then, why not have an extra rider go ahead to keep 
the road clear and get the change of horses in time?” 

“Do so!” said Ferdinand. “His excellency did not 
think of that. A ducat for the forerunner, half for the 
horse’s bait — four more — eighteen in all-let us say, a 
round twenty ! Any difference is for the trouble we give 
you !” 

The speaker, having in fumbling in the duke’s pocket 
found a purse, paid with the other’s coin, which enhanced 
his mirth. 

About to step into the post-carriage, Ascoli forgot him- 
self, or rather remembered himself, so far as to want to let 
his superior precede; but the latter took off his hat to 
him, and, bowing, said : 

“Never such bemeanment ! After your excellency ! 
And take the right-hand seat, for it is quite enough honor 
that I should ride in the same coach !” and he took the 
second place. 

With the seducing promise that the postboys would be 
doubly paid, the cab went off at full speed, passing some 
straggling shadows which moved along the roadside with 
startling velocity. The king wished to know their nature. 


The Backward Journey. 129 

“My lord,” was the rider’s reply, “it appears that there 
has been some fighting between the French and the Nea- 
politans, and, the latter getting the worst of it, they are 
hurrying home to tell their wives !” 

“Faith, I hoped we had the start,” remarked the mon- 
arch to the duke. “But we are distanced. It is humil- 
iating. What legs those rogues must have! Six francs 
more drink money if you get ahead of them.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


ALL IS LOST — PLUS HONOR. 

While the news kept arriving that the French were re- 
tiring and the Neapolitans following them up, all was se- 
rene or rather gay at Naples. 

In fact, a letter on the eve of the crisis had arrived for 
the queen from her lord’s hand, which was read at one of 
her grand suppers. 

After having seen how he wrote under the dictation 
of Cardinal Ruffo, we may as well see how he wrote to a 
queen with his own hand. 

“My Dearest Spouse: 

“I have been out hunting this morning at Corneto, 
where they laid bare some ancient tombs that would have 
delighted Sir William Hamilton, but I left the wiseacres 
to rummage among the old bones and went to the chase. 

“It was more wearying than mine at Persano, and there 
was less game. I killed only three wild boars, one of 
which retaliated by disemboweling three of my best 
hounds. At the same time, we heard cannon toward 
Civita Castellana, being Mack pounding the French just 
where he said he would pitch into them. This, you see, 
does great honor to his strategical skill. I dare say the 
French are replying, but they have only eight thousand 
men against our forty thousand, so that it is in our favor. 

“I am writing to you, my dearest spouse, as the dinner 
is not quite ready and I am wolfishly hungry — but I util- 
ize the half hour in agreeably writing to you. 

“After dinner, I am going to the play, to hear the 'Se- 
cret Marriage,’ and see a ballet composed in mine honor. 
It is called ‘Alexander the Great Entering Babylon.’ As 
you are Learning enthroned, I need not point out there 
is a delicate hint at me in this allusion. If it is as good 


All is Lost — Plus Honor. 


' 3 ' 

as they tell me, I will have the composer take it to the 
San Carlo and produce it there for your benefit. 

“This evening I expect news of the decisive victory, 
with which I shall send a courier on the instant. 

“No more to say but that I hope you and the* family 
are enjoying as good health as mine, and may Heaven 
keep you. Ferdinando B.” 

The important part of the missive disappeared under 
the secondary ; there was more about sticking boars than 
killing the French ; but “the state is I !” is the motto of all 
absolute monarchies. 

But through the selfish gloss, the royal message pro- 
duced the effect the queen anticipated, and no one was 
bold enough among the opposition not to share the lady’s 
hopes as to the result of the battle. 

The queen’s supper was in her own apartments. Her 
guests were Hamilton and his lady, Nelson, Prince Cas- 
telcicala, Lord Acton, who scented reverses and was more 
attentive to the queen than ever, as he felt that she would 
be his sole support. 

What enlivened the company was the belief that the 
cannonade presaged the defeat of the foe ; if any did not 
believe the king’s forecast, they assumed the laugh like the 
others. 

Alone, suffused with the glow from Emma Lyonna’s 
countenance, still Lord Nelson appeared dull. He did 
not join in the chorus of hope which caressed the queen’s 
pride and hate. This preoccupation finally was noticed 
by the hostess and, as she could not ascribe it to Emma’s 
rigor, she inquired into the cause of this absence of mind 
and constraint. 

“Though my frankness may displease your majesty,” 
the Englishman replied, “I am going to make answer like 
a plain mariner. I am uneasy. I always am so when 
I hear the guns speaking.” 


All is Lost— Plus Honor. 


132 

‘‘Your lordship forgets on what side the guns are 
firing,” retorted Carolina. 

“No; it is because the royal letter lets us know on what 
side is the firing! If any mishap befalls your majesty, 
my uneasiness will change to remorse.” 

“Why did you write to me urging war, then?” 

“Because it was affirmed to me that the Emperor of 
Austria would take the field at the same time as we did.” 

“How do you know that he has not done so, or is doing 
so?” 

“If so we should have heard it. A German kaiser does 
not march with his guard of two hundred thousand men 
without the earth quaking under them a little. If he 
has not started, he cannot very well do so before April.” 

“In any case, ought we to despair?” 

“I do not think of despairing; but I fear that the Nea- 
politan army is not strong enough to withstand the rush 
of the French.” 

“Do you imagine that ten thousand French under 
Championnet can overcome sixty thousand Neapolitans 
commanded by General Mack, famed as the premier 
strategist of Europe?” 

“I only say that the upshot of any battle is doubtful, 
and that the fate of Naples depends on this one being de- 
cided, and that if Mack is unfortunately defeated, the 
French will be here in a fortnight.” 

“My lord,” reproached the queen, “do you so little es- 
teem our soldiers that you think they cannot vanquish 
these Jacobins six to one, when you with your English- 
men would want no odds to attack them?” 

“At sea, lady, for the sea is the Briton’s element. Born 
on an island is the same as on a moored ship. On sea, 
I say it boldly, an Englishman can whip two Frenchmen ; 
but it is another matter on land. What the English are 
on the water, the French are on land. Lord knows I hate 


All is Lost — Plus Honor. 


03 

the French and have vowed a war of extermination upon 
them, and I would all the lot of them were aboard one ship 
and I could lay my poor Vanguard, battered as she is, 
alongside that ship. But because one don’t like a foe, 
it is no reason to underrate. A man can hate without 
despising. If I scorned the French I should not stoop to 
hate them.” 

“Oh, my good lord,” interrupted Emma, with one of 
her peculiar shakes of the head, charming and full of 
grace, “do not croak like the bird of ill omen. The 
French will be beaten by General Mack on land as they 
were by Lord Nelson on the sea. Hark !” 

They heard the clacking of a whip as when a rider 
wishes to herald that he is bringing news — probably 
good. But what checked the rising spirits of the hearers, 
was that the sound was accompanied by the rumbling of 
carriage wheels. Indeed, the vehicle was brought to a 
stop under the palace gateway. 

Suddenly, Acton, who had taken a few forward steps, 
fell backwards into the room, like a man struck by some 
impossible sight. 

“The king!” he gasped. “What does this mean?” 

It was truly the ‘king, who came in almost instantly, 
followed by the Duke of Ascoli. Once he had reached 
his own grounds and had no more to fear, he had taken 
his station. He was in a droll mood; spite inspired by 
his defeat struggled in him with delight at having es- 
caped the peril, and he felt all that impulse to “poke fun” 
which was natural to him. 

“Yar-r-rh !” snarled he, rubbing his hands to warm 
them without paying any attention to those present. 
“This is a good deal snugger than on the road! What 
do you think, Ascoli ?” 

The guests overwhelmed him with their salutations. 

“Good-evening, good-evening — I am glad to see the 


All is Lost — Plus Honor. 


•34 

table set. Since we left Rome, we have not found a 
piece of meat we could drive a tooth into. Cheese and 
bread off the palm of the hand was all that came under 
the hand, ha, ha ! Very restorative ! What scurvy road- 
side houses my kingdom has, and how I pity the poor 
travelers who have to take pot-luck in such hovels! To 
table, Ascoli, to table — I am mad with hunger !” 

He sat at table without looking to see if he crowded 
any one out or not, and made the duke sit beside him. 

“Sire, will you be kind enough to calm my disquiet,” 
entreated the queen, drawing near the one whom all 
shunned with respect, “by telling me to what circumstance 
I owe this unexpected return ?” 

“Lady, it was you who related to me — for I’ll be hanged 
if it would have been that locked-up library, San Nican- 
dro ! — the tale of the French king, Francis the First. 
After some battle or another, he was taken prisoner by 
some emperor, whose name I forget, and he wrote to his 
mother, or his wife, or yet another, a letter of some length 
which rounded off with this pretty tag: ‘All is lost but 
honor !’ Now, suppose I arrive out of a Pavia — I recall 
the battle now ! and that not having been such a soft king 
as Francis, I don’t write to you, but I bring my own let- 
ter ” 

“ ‘All is lost save honor ?’ ” repeated the queen, 
frightened. 

“Oh, dear, no, lady !” said the monarch, with a shrill 
laugh, “there is a slight variation: ‘All is lost — plus 
honor !’ ” 

“Fie, sire!” exclaimed Ascoli, ashamed as a Neapolitan 
at the royal callousness. 

“Honor is not lost,” resumed the king, frowning and 
grating his teeth, which revealed that he was not as in- 
sensible to the position as he feigned. “What do those 
fellows seek who are tearing over the road so fast that, 


All is Lost — Plus Honor. 


135 

after enriching my postboys to make them go speedy, I 
had all the difficulty in the world to outrun them ? After 
shame, is it?” 

All were steeped in a glacial silence. Without knowing 
much, all suspected too much. But the king, being seated, 
had stretched out a fork and speared a roast pheasant 
happening to be before him, and divided it into halves 
for himself and his fellow-fugitive. But, looking around, 
he spied that all but the queen were standing. 

“Pray be seated,” said he; “things will not be improved 
by your letting your soup get cold.” Pouring out a 
brimming glass of red wine for himself and passing the 
bottle to the duke, he went on : “To the health of Gen- 
eral Championnet ! Hey, ho ! but we have a man who 
keeps his word, there ! He promised his friends, the Re- 
publicans of Rome, that he would come back to them be- 
fore the twentieth day, and he is with them on the seven- 
teenth ! He ought to be drinking this fine Bordeaux and 
I making wry faces over cider !” 

“How now! what do you say, sir? Championnet in 
Rome again ?” demanded the queen. 

“As truly as that I am at Caserta; but he may be no 
more warmly received there than I am here !” 

“If you were not better received, sire, and with the 
greeting you are entitled to, you should attribute it to the 
astonishment caused by your sudden appearance at the 
very time when we so little expected it. It is barely 
three hours since your courier notified me the next ad- 
vices would be of the battle.” 

“Oh, I am the bearer. The news is that we have been 
thrashed till the seams show!” Then, turning to Nel- 
son, he added: “What do you say to that, my lord, who 
is the vanquisher of vanquishers?” 

“Half an hour before your majesty arrived, I was ex- 


1 36 All is Lost— Plus Honor. 

pressing my fears that there might be a reverse,” returned 
Nelson. 

“But nobody would believe that!” added the queen. 

“That is always the way with prophecies, and yet Lord 
Nelson is not a prophet in his own country. In any case, 
he is right, and the others wrong.” 

“But what about our forty thousand men with which 
General Mack demonstrated that he would crush the ten 
thousand men of Championnet ?” 

“Oh, Mack does not seem to be a prophet like Lord 
Nelson, for it was the ten thousand little Championnets 
who crushed the forty thousand huge Macks. By the 
way, Ascoli, I invited the Pope to come on the wings of 
the cherubs to spend Easter with me in Rome! I hope 
he will not have been too much in a hurry to accept the 
call. Pass me some of that haunch of venison, Castel- 
cicala — a portion of pheasant is no great stop-gap to a 
man who has not eaten in twenty-four hours !” 

Being served, he turned to the queen to hear any far- 
ther questions. She had but one and the last. It was 
to draw out the elucidation of the transformation by dress 
of the king and his companion. But Ferdinando insisted 
on all being at their places at the board before he would 
speak. They sat, but none cared to eat. 

“Well, I will tell you the honor I have done Ascoli,” 
he said. “You must promise that the Jacobins boasted 
that if they made me captive, it would not be long; they 
would hang me !” 

“They would be capable of it !” interjected the queen. 

“You allow that, madam? As we had to start with- 
out any disguising, at Albano I proposed to Ascoli that 
we should change coats. I told him that it was so that 
if the Jacobins stopped us they would take him for the 
king and let me pass — but I did not let him know until 
we were on safe ground that if they caught the king — 


All is Lost — Plus Honor. 137 

that is, a good semblance, they would hang him, or the 
semblance! Ha, aha!” 

“Excuse, sire, I thought of all that, but that was the 
very reason why I accepted the cover.” 

Again the king relt touched by this simple nobility. 
Ascoli was the one among the courtiers who had begged 
the least and got the least, because he had not been re- 
minded of him. 

“Ascoli !” said the sovereign, “I repeat what I told you, 
that you shall retain that coat with all the stars and bars 
and things, while I retain your coat. And if ever you 
have a favor to ask of me or a reproach to make, come 
to me wearing that coat of mine, and you shall not go 
away unsatisfied.” 

“Bravo !” said Sir William, “never have I seen the king 
more grand !” 

“Sire!” joined in Nelson, “let me offer my felicitations : 
you have shown yourself a king twice this evening.” 

“It is to make up for the days when I fall below the 
mark,” returned Ferdinando, with that tone between witti- 
ness and good humor, which made it so difficult to judge 
him correctly. “Is the barter fair, Ascoli?” 

“Quite, except that all the gratitude is on my side,” 
was the response. “Still, I would ask your majesty to 
kindly return me a little tortoise-shell snuffbox out of 
the pocket, containing a miniature of my daughter. At 
the same time I will restore this letter from the emperor 
of Austria which your majesty was hastily looking at 
and which you thrust into your pocket at the first line 
only !” 

“That is so ; I remember it now.” 

Taking the letter, he opened it mechanically. 

“Is our nephew well ?” asked the queen, with some un- 
easiness. 


All is Lost— Plus Honor. 


138 

“I hope so — but I was interrupted, as Ascoli remarked 
— the first line felicitated me on entering Rome and it 
was not the moment to smile over that. Now, it is dif- 
ferent, and I will read it.” 

At the third or fourth line his face fell and became 
more and more cloudy. 

“By St. Januarius!” he exclaimed, “this is queer! and, 
unless I am squinting ” 

“Oh, what is it, sire?” asked the queen, anxiously. 

“Nothing — the emperor announces something unex- 
pected — that is all !” 

“But by your expression I feared it was bad.” 

“Bad! You are not wrong, madam — for birds of evil 
omen flock together. This is our day for bad news.” 

A footman, coming in, went up to the king and whis- 
pered : 

“Sire, the person you asked for on stepping out of the 
— hem ! — vehicle, being by chance over at San Leucilo, 
awaits your majesty in the private rooms.” 

“That’s good ! I am going to meet him. By the way, 
just ask if Ferrari — who lately brought me a message, 
is still here?” 

“Yes, sire.” 

“Bid him not budge ! I shall need him in about half 
an hour or less.” 

The footman went out. 

The king excused himself on the plea of needing repose 
after his night’s flight. 

He addressed Nelson in particular. 

“My lord, I hope to se' you this day again. In these 
circumstances I want to know my friends and how far 
I can depend upon them.” 

“Sire,” replied Nelson, with a bow, “I trust that your 
majesty has not doubted and never will doubt my devo- 
tion or the affection in which my august sovereign holds 


All is Lost — Plus Honor. 139 

you, nor the support which the English nation will lend 
you.” 

The king nodded his thanks and his belief in his pledge. 

“Sir William Hamilton,” he proceeded, “you may re- 
call that when this wretched war broke out I washed my 
hands of it? Come what may, it is no longer any con- 
cern of mine ! It concerns those who did all without con- 
sulting me or, if I were consulted, did not heed my ad- 
vice.” 

In the same parting glance including Acton and his 
wife, he walked out. 

The queen crossed rapidly to Acton and asked quickly : 

“Did you hear that, and that he mentioned Ferrari, after 
reading the emperor’s letter?” 

“Certainly; but Ferrari does not know anything, for 
all passed in his loss of consciousness.” 

“That does not matter. It will be prudent to get rid 
of that fellow.” 

“Right! We w ill rid ourselves of him.” So said 
Acton. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


BETWEEN TWO TEMPTRESSES. 

The party broke up when the king withdrew, as though 
he was the sole tie that held the elements in bondage. 

The queen informed Sir William that never had she so 
stood in need of a friend, and must retain his wife by her. 
Sir William went to his rooms to formulate a dispatch to 
his government, and Nelson had another to write to his 
superior officer, the Admiral Lord St. Vincent, who had 
been rewarded, thanks to patronage, always more lavishly 
than his greater inferior. 

He was interrupted in his report of the state of affairs 
at the point memorable : 

“ ‘The Neapolitan officers have not lost much honor, for 
God knows they have little to lose, but they lost all they 
had ’ ” 

Here, he heard behind him something like the flutter of 
gossamer wings. It was the literally sylph-like footsteps 
of that wondrous Emma Hamilton. Turning, he 
breathed an exclamation of joy. 

But the intruder brought a finger to her lips, wear- 
ing a charming smile, and hushed him like a statue of si- 
lence. Advancing to his chair, she leaned over the back 
and whispered: 

“Come with me, Horatio! The queen must see you 
before she sees her husband again.” 

Nelson sighed to think that an order from the ad- 
miralty might part him from this Circe, and change his 
destiny. Every word, gesture and endearment of hers 
was a fresh link in the chain which bound him. He rose 



“The intruder brought a finger to her lips, wearing a charming smile 
and hushed him like a statue of silence.” (s ee page 140) 


























. 













































































Between Two Temptresses. 141 

painfully, a prey to that vertigo which attacked him all 
the time when he saw her anew after a separation. 

“Lead me,” he pleaded; “you know that I cannot see 
my way when you dazzle me.” 

Emma drew off one of those flimsy scarfs which were 
the fashion, and tossed one end up into the air for him 
to seize it, which he did and kissed it rapturously, and 
said : 

“Come, my dear Theseus, this is the clew to the maze, 
even though you leave me for another Ariadne. Still, I 
forewarn you that if you leave me, I shall never console 
myself, though the consoler were superhuman.” 

Nelson followed. He would have done anything she 
asked now. 

“My most-beloved queen, I bring him who is both my 
tyrant and my slave.” 

The queen occupied a sofa in the sitting-room common 
to the two beauties. The scarcely suppressed flame in 
her eyes was anger. 

“Come and sit near me, Nelson, my defender,” she said. 
“I have downright need of the view of a hero to com- 
fort me in such abasement. Did you see that crowned 
buffoon make himself his own messenger of shame?” she 
disdainfully tossed her head. “Did you hear him jesting 
at his own cowardice? Ah, Nelson, it is sad for a proud 
queen and valorous woman to have a king for mate who 
does not know rightly how to sway either sword or 
scepter !” 

She let the guest sit by her while Emma, throwing her- 
self upon a cushion at her feet, covered the man whose 
mission it was hers to fascinate with a spelling gaze while 
playing with her jewels. 

“The fact is, the king is a great philosopher,” pro- 
nounced the admiral. 

“Do you seriously deck with that name this oblivion of 


142 Between Two Temptresses. 

dignity? That he who was reared as a lazzaroni should 
not have the genius of reigning, may pass; but he might 
have a manly spirit ! It was Ascoli who had the kingly 
heart under the royal coat ! If those Jacobins had caught 
the duke, that other would have let them hang him to 
cover his escape, without a word to save him ! To be 
daughter of Maria Theresa and wife of a Ferdinando, ad- 
mit, it is a freak of hazard which makes one doubt Provi- 
dence !” 

“Pooh! things are better as they are!” sneered Lady 
Hamilton, with her English good sense, “you do not want 
to be king and queen at the same time, do you? Better 
be a golden Queen Bess than a Maria de Medicis !” 

“I would I were a man and could bear a sword!” ejac- 
ulated the other, not listening. 

“It would never pair off with this,” returned Emma, 
touching Nelsons, “and, thank Heaven, as long as that 
protects you, you will want none other!” 

Nelson looked at her with infinite love. 

“Alas, my dear one,” he said, “the good Lord knows 
that the words I am about speaking break my heart as 
they come forth; but do you think I should have sighed 
when you startled me by coming upon me when I least 
awaited it, if I also had not my dread.” 

“You, the Dreadnought ?” objected Lady Hamilton. 

“I foretell what he is going to say,” broke in the queen, 
putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “I grant I am 
weeping, but they are tears of rage!” 

“But I do not foresee, and I want a clearing up,” per- 
sisted her friend. “What do you mean, Nelson, by ter- 
rors ? I wish you would speak out !” 

She put an arm around his neck and kissed his scarred 
brow. 

“Believe me,” Nelson said, tenderly, “if this brow, red- 


Between Two Temptresses. 143 

dening with pride under your lips, does not also redden 
with joy, it is because I see great grief in the nigh future.” 

“The only one I know in this world is to be parted from 
you.” 

“You guess it!” 

“We are to be parted?” burst forth the beauty with 
alarm well played ; “what now can separate us ?” 

“A whim of Mr. Pitt — an order from the admiralty 
office. Can I not be sent to capture Martinique or the 
Trinity Islands, as I was to win at Calvi, Teneriffe or 
Aboukir? I left tokens of my skin at those places — else- 
where I shall leave my head, and England will have noth- 
ing more of me at her service !” 

“You would obey such an order?” 

“Would my Emma set me betwixt love and duty? 
Am I to be a traitor or a madman?” 

“Oh, I admit that you cannot say to King George: 
‘Master, I do not wish to quit Naples because I am fond 
of a lady there who loves me to despair,’ but you could 
tell him : ‘King, I do not want to abandon a queen whose 
sole support, sustainer and defender I am. You crowned 
heads owe mutual support and must answer for one an- 
other to the King of kings as brothers and their keepers.’ 
If you do not care to talk to him in that strain, why I 
shall get Sir William to do it, since he is the king’s 
foster brother and he has the claim to speak so.” 

“I may be egotistical, my lord,” added the queen, “but 
we are ruined if you do not shield me; and when the 
question is of upholding a throne, and protecting a realm, 
do you not think that it is included that a man of feeling 
like you should risk something to save us?” 

“You are right. Somehow, I see nothing but my love. 
It is amazing how that is my polar star ! Your majesty 
makes me happy in showing me that devotion is in what 
I saw merely as passion. I was just writing to Lord 


144 Between Two Temptresses. 

St. Vincent, and I will finish the letter by sueing him to 
let me confine myself to your service. He will write to 
the admirality on my behalf.’’ 

“And Sir William shall write directly to the king and 
the prime minister,” confirmed the diplomatist’s better- 
half. 

“I hope you understand what need we have of you and 
the immense services you can render us,” resumed the 
royal pleader. “In all probability, we must quit Naples 
and dwell in exile.” 

“Do you think things so desperate, lady?” 

With a sad smile, the queen shook her head. 

“Yet it seems to me that the king could ” 

“If the king should make a stand it would be a mishap 
to me, mark ! The Neapolitans detest me, being a race 
loathing talent, beauty and bravery. Always bent under 
some foreign yoke, they calumniate and hate all who are 
not of their kind. They hate Acton because he was born 
abroad ; Emma, because she is English, and I, I suppose, 
because I am Austrian. Supposing that with a scrap of 
courage, the king rallies the wreck of our forces and 
stops the French in the Abruzzi, the Jacobins here will 
rise and renew the horrors of the Parisian massacres. 
Who can deny that they would treat me like my sister, 
the Queen Marie Antoinette, and Emma like her bosom- 
friend, the Lamballe Princess? Thanks to his lazzaroni 
to whom he caters and who adores him, Ferdinando will 
slip through, but, my dear Nelson, Acton, I, and Emma 
will be slain ! Now, do you not think that Heaven re- 
serves for you a high part in letting you do for us here 
what Mirabeau, Lafayette and my two imperial brothers 
failed to do in France for their royal family?” 

“It would be too great a glory — everlasting ! and one to 
which I dare not aspire !” 

“It is plain that you have not perceived that it is our 


Between Two Temptresses. 145 

amity with England that has ruined us? If, firm to the 
treaty with the Republic, we had not let your fleet victual 
and take in water and repair damages at Syracuse, you 
would have been driven to recruit at Gibraltar, and so 
would have missed the French fleet at Aboukir.” 

“True; I should have lost them. And an infamous 
naval court decree would have befallen me instead of a 
triumph. How could I say that I was watching Naples 
when I ought to have been looking Tunisward.” 

“In short, was it not because of the rejoicings over 
your victory that the war was flung in our faces? Nel- 
son, the fate of the Two Sicilies is wrapped up in your 
flag, and you are bound to the destiny of its princes ! It 
will be said in time to come : ‘All turned from them, al- 
lies, friends and kinsmen — but with the world against 
them, they had Nelson for them, and he saved them !’ ” 

With the gesture emphasizing her speech, the queen of- 
fered her hand to the admiral, who knelt on one knee and 
took it to kiss. 

“Would your majesty promise me one thing ?” stam- 
mered he, ensnared by the flattery. 

“You have the right to ask anything of those who 
shall owe everything to you !” 

“I beseech your royal word that if you have to quit 
Naples, it will be on my deck, and on none other that 
you will cross to Sicily ?” 

“I swear that, Nelson, and that, wherever I go, my sole 
and eternal friend, Emma, goes with me !” 

With a passionate transport, the speaker took her favor- 
ite’s head between her hands and laid a kiss on the peer- 
less forehead. 

“My gage is given,” answered the Englishman. 
“Henceforth your friends and enemies are mine. Though 
I am lost in trying to save you, I shall save you.” 

“Oh, here is really the kings’ champion and the thrones’ 


146 Between Two Temptresses. 

good knight!” cried out Lady Hamilton. “You are the 
man I dreamed you to be when I gave you all my love and 
my whole heart !” 

At this moment gentle tapping came at the door. 

“It’s Acton,” explained the mistress; “run into my 
rooms while I receive his response to what I wished to 
know.” 

Intoxicated with love, pride and praise, Nelson let Lady 
Hamilton draw him away into the other apartment. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE KING'S PRAYER BOOK. 

In a second, the queen visage suffered a change, as 
though it donned or doffed a mask. Her gaze hardened, 
and in a curt voice she spoke the single word : 

“Come !” 

It was Acton, of whom she inquired who had called the 
king away. 

“Cardinal Ruffo,” he said. “I cannot say what they 
talked about, but I know what they have done. They 
have verified their suspicion, or at least the cardinal’s sus- 
picion, that the royal correspondence was tampered with. 
They sent for Ferrari.” 

“I foresaw all that, and that is why I said that it will be 
right to do what we arranged.” 

“At the first opportunity !” 

There was nothing farther for the queen to order, and 
her right-hand man left her to her study. 

She had reckoned on the perfidy being discovered in 
the end, but not that the king would penetrate it. In 
fact, it took Cardinal Ruffo with his knowledge and in- 
sight into nefarious practice to trace for the royal pupil’s 
benefit the treatment which Ferrari and the letter he bore 
had undergone. The other had witnessed this demonstra- 
tion with the wonderment of a man who would never 
have attained this height of perception by his own wits. 

“Now,” said the man of the church, fixedly eying the 
monarch, “are you fond of Ferrari?” 

“Of course. I prize him.” 

“Then, though it give you a pang, you should part 


148 The King’s Prayer Book. 

with him for a space. I believe the local air is pernicious 
to him at this season.” 

“That is easy ; we will send him into Germany again.” 

“It is a fatiguing journey, but some fatigues are bene- 
ficial !” 

“I want to be clearly rid of this nightmare. I shall 
send my nephew, the emperor, the dispatch in which he 
told me he would go into the field as soon as I entered 
Rome, and I’ll ask him what he thinks of it?” 

“And for nothing to be suspected, your majesty will 
go into Naples with all the Court to-day, but bidding Fer- 
rari to come to me at San Leucio this night, where he is 
to take my orders as if your own. It is I who will 
write to the emperor, in your name, exposing the doubts 
and begging him to write the responses to me.” 

“Fine! but won’t Ferrari fall into French hands, since 
they will be guarding the passes ?” 

“He must sail over to Trieste and go therefrom by post, 
returning the same route, which will give him a rest on 
the boat.” 

“You are a prodigy, and I should be hard to please and 
he, too, if this did not suit.” 

“Then to other matters.” 

“This priest, Pronio, who is waiting without? After 
all, a priest is more in your line to catechise.” 

“I am of the opinion that he comes in another capacity 
than the clerical one !” 

Curate Pronio, when introduced, appeared as a man 
who would not see forty again. One might identify this 
parish priest as such by his tonsure, but it was so over- 
grown by his thicket of black hair as to be barely percepti- 
ble. He was strongly built and was more fitted for a 
cuirassier’s breastplate than the cassock. 

“Cardinal Ruffo, I beg to present to you the Curate 


The King’s Prayer Book. 149 

Pronio. He comes recommended by the Bishop of Ni- 
cosia. Tell your tale — Cardinal Ruffo is my friend.” 

“To be brief, sire : I was with a nephew of mine, late 
at night, on the main road, when I recognized in one of 
two gentlemen traveling in hot haste in a shabby post- 
chaise, your majesty. The king, believed to be in Rome, 
in a change of clothes and skurrying home — it was an 
event !” 

“One to be proud of !” hinted the king, sarcastically. 

“I questioned the postilions, who were dropped at this 
stage, and learned that there had been a great battle and 
that the Neapolitans had been beaten — the king was re- 
tiring.” 

“Scuttling off like a rabbit, smoked out! Oh, speak 
you as plainly, and we can hit it off together, father !” 

“The idea took me that the Neapolitans were in full 
flight to Naples and that the French would be at their 
heels ! I saw but one means of stopping this man-hunt.” 

“I should like to hear the means,” observed Ruffo. 

“I am a little interested myself,” subjoined the king. 

“Revolutionize the Abruzzi and the ‘Land of Labor !’ 
as there is no army, oppose the invader by the roused 
population.” 

Ruffo looked hard at the speaker. 

“Do you happen to be a genius, reverence ?” he asked. 

“Who can tell what a man is?” was the reply. “Well, 
I thought to apply to the king and show my idea. So I 
presented myself under the influence of the bishop's 
name.” 

“So the bishop knows you?” 

“Not a whit, or I the bishop. I hope to be forgiven 
this lie in favor of the good intention.” 

“Fll be dashed but I forgive you — eminence, absolution 
for the good priest !” 

“If the king approves, I will raise the mountains in a 


150 The King’s Prayer Book. 

week from one peak to the farthest ! I have two friends 
to carry out my project.” 

“Men of note?” 

“In their way. One is Gaetano Mammone, known as 
the Sora miller, and the other a brigand named Michele 
Pezza, young, but promising. He has taken the title of 
Fra Diavolo ” 

“The devil’s brother? That is promising!” agreed the 
king. 

“With these men, I engage to succeed. Revolutions 
are not set going with novices fresh out of the convent 
school!” 

“You seem to be pretty sure of your scheme, reverence,” 
commented the cardinal. 

“A man has to be sure who will be hanged if he fails !” 

“Whew ! to make captains of a miller and a brigand — 
this requires reflection,” dissented the monarch. 

“I will refer to my breviary while your majesty re- 
flects,” assented the priest, like one who did not let go the 
line when he had felt his fish nibble. 

And for that matter, withdrawing into a nook, he 
pulled out a well-thumbed little book and buried himself 
in the pages. 

The king and his adviser having consulted, the latter 
went to the writing table, where he filled up a kind of 
blank, appointing Curate Pronio “the king’s captain com- 
manding in the Abruzzi, and Terra Lavore, and “any- 
where else on occasion.” The new general was empow- 
ered to appoint his lieutenants under him. 

“By the way, curate,” remarked the king; but the rev- 
olutionist in embryo interrupted him brusquely, saying : 

“Your majesty will excuse me, but since these few 
minutes I am your majesty’s captain !” 

“Just so, captain ! I was only going to point out that 
your prayer-book is showing itself by sticking out of your 


The King’s Prayer Book. 15 1 

pocket, and it is not as becoming as a sabretasche to a 
military man!” 

Pronio plucked out the book and presented it to the 
speaker. Opening it at the first page, the king read the 
title : 

“ ‘ “The Prince,” by Machiavelli.’ ” 

“Hello, what’s this about?” asked Ferdinando, not 
knowing work or author. 

“Sire,” replied Pronio, “it is the prayer-book for kings!” 

“Oh, if you study that sort of thing, the cardinal must 
be right, for he was suggesting that none better than you, 
who, warrant you, can raise a population, could draw up 
the proclamation which is the red rag to that bull, the 
people.” 

The curate-captain went to the table, and, taking up 
the pen, wrote with a facility proving that he was copying 
some matter already cut and dried in his head. He offered 
this to the ruler, who passed it over to his counselor, 
who read : 

“While I am in the capital of Christendom, busy in re- 
establishing the Holy Church, the French, though I 
thought myself at peace with them, threaten to descend 
upon the Abruzzi country. In spite of the dangers, I 
risk all to pierce their lines and regain my imperiled cap- 
ital. Once I am in Naples, I shall march to encounter 
them with a numerous army, with which to exterminate 
them. Meanwhile, let the people fly to arms, to succor 
the faith and defend their king — I say, their father, ready 
to lay down his life to shield the altars and goods of his 
subjects, their loved ones and their liberty! Whoso does 
not fall in under the flag of this holy warfare will be 
accounted traitor to the land ! whoever abandons it, after 
taking his place in the ranks, will be punished as a rebel 
and enemy of Church and State!” 

This effusion was dated “Rome, December 7th, 1798.” 


152 


The King’s Prayer Book. 

While Pronio had but slightly watched the royal coun- 
tenance in glancing at his document, he studied the pre- 
late’s with the utmost attention. Two or three times, 
when Ruffo looked up during the perusal, he met the 
priest’s eyes fixed on his face. 

“I am not mistaken; you are a clever man!’’ said the 
cardinal. “Sire, there is not a soul in your confines able 
to concoct such a proclamation, and your majesty may 
boldly sign it.” 

The king signed, without hesitation, as a token of con- 
fidence. 

“Just add: ‘Captain Joseph Pronio is charged with 
the publication of this, my proclamation, and to watch 
over the intentions being fully performed,’ and then copy 
it all in duplicate, while the king signs this order for you 
to draw ten thousand ducats from the treasury.” 

The king, not being as quick a scribe as the priest, 
the two writings were finished at about the same time. 

Pronio handed the cardinal the two copies of his work, 
and the latter said : 

“You see the confidence the king has in you. Cash this 
order for ten thousand ducats, and at Naples have as many 
thousand copies printed as can be done in twenty-four 
hours. Scatter the rest broadcast, but mind that the first 
ten thousand are properly displayed in the city.” 

“Printing cannot cost all that. What am I to do with 
the balance ?” 

“Buy guns and ammunition.” 

Pronio was going to bound out of the room in excite- 
ment. 

“Stay ! Do you not see that the king’s hand is held out 
to you?” 

The priest-captain received the favor, and rushed forth 
ready to be killed for the monarch. The latter saw him 


The King’s Prayer Book. 15} 

leave without sorrow ; much of the scene was beyond his 
comprehension. 

“Of course,” said the king, “that San Nicandro de- 
ceiver is to blame, but I do not understand your enthu- 
siam over this fraudulent proclamation, which has not one 
word of truth in it.” 

“That is precisely why ! I admire this because it avers 
what neither your majesty nor I would dare assert.” 

“Will you make that plain, so that I may not mourn for 
my ten thousand ducats ?” 

“Your majesty is not rich enough to pay its full value. 
Do you not see that you were at Rome when you com- 
posed this ! You were tranquilly re-establishing the ex- 
pelled Church, innocently, wholly for the happiness of 
the Pope, not making war on the republicans, with whom 
you would have dwelt at peace if they had not threat- 
ened to invade the Abruzzi.” 

“I see where I am !” said the listener. 

“And the world will see that it was not on your part, 
but on the part of the French that the bad doings, the 
rupture and the treachery, came. Though the French 
representative, Garat, had menaced you, still you trusted 
to them as to allies of whom you were proud. You went 
to Rome, full of confidence in their fair play, and while 
you were there, tranquil, the French caught you unawares 
and thrashed Mack. There is nothing astonishing that a 
strategist and an army should be whipped when at- 
tacked in an unguarded moment.” 

“It happens every day,” admitted the hearer. “It is 
about the only way an invincible general gets defeated.” 

“Your majesty adds that you broke through the ene- 
my’s ranks to get home into your capital, in peril, 
whence you will emerge with a numerous army to exter- 
minate them. This is far from fleeing before the following 
French : you break through their ranks regardless of dan- 


154 


The King’s Prayer Book. 

ger — you dare it, if anything ! And why do you so hard- 
ily expose your sacred person? To regain your capital, 

to defend it ! to extermi ” 

“Enough!” roared the pupil in statecraft, “I see 
through it, my dear cardinal ! Your eminence is right, 
thanks to this proclamation, I shall be held up as a hero! 
Your Pronio is a genius. Did he learn these traits in 
that Machiavillain ?” 

“He has left his ‘Machiavelli’ behind him ! You can 
keep it, my liege, to study at leisure, for that sharper 
has nothing more to learn from it !” 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE TWO ADMIRALS. 

Pronio must have been a genius, for the proclamation, 
distributed over Naples, was like a pouring of turpentine 
on a smoldering fire. The king, hearing a hundred 
thousand voices declaring that they were ready to die for 
him from the highest to the lowest, hugged the idea of 
defending his capital, and to appeal from the cowardice 
of the army to the savagery of the mob. 

He, therefore, rose on the morning of the eleventh of 
December, prepared to accept resistance instead of flight, 
when the Admiral Francis Caracciolo was announced. 

Spurred on by the queen’s prejudice, the king did not 
like the admiral, but he had to esteem him. His grade 
had been won by his admirable valor against the Mediter- 
ranean corsairs; the cleverness with which he had ma- 
neuvered his frigate, the Minerva , out from under the 
guns of Toulon, when Bonaparte had recovered the port 
from the English ; his coolness in protecting other vessels 
under fire and bringing them home, though battered and 
crippled. He had not lost one. 

Ferdinando believed that the naval prince had come to 
beg mercy for his nephew, incarcerated for intrigue with 
the French and with the native conspirators. Enchanted 
with having this means of being disagreeable, he ordered 
his instant admission. 

Arrayed in his full dress as admiral, Caracciolo en- 
tered, calm and dignified as ever. His high social position 
had put his family for hundreds of years on a footing 
with the various rulers of his land, so that he joined to 


The Two Admirals. 


156 

his supreme dignity a perfect courtesy, of which he gave 
a specimen to the queen in refusing to let his family as- 
sociate with the feasters at the Court welcoming Lord 
Nelson. 

Such courtesy on any part always embarrassed the dull 
king, that not being his leading mark. So, when he saw 
the officer stop at the prescribed distance and wait for 
the sovereign to address him, pursuant to etiquette, he 
hastened to open proceedings by hurling the reproach he 
had prepared for him : 

“Oho ! here you are, my lord admiral ! It appears that 
you were very anxious to see us ?” 

“That is true, sire!” replied the other, bowing; “I be- 
lieved in the urgency of my having the honor to see your 
majesty.” 

“Oh, I know what brings you !” 

“I am the more glad, as that is justice given my 
fidelity.” 

“Yes, yes, you want to beg off that rogue, your nephew ! 
It appears that he is involved in a bad affair, for it is 
no less than the crime of high treason ! But I forewarn 
you that all pleas, even yours, are useless, and justice 
must take its course.” 

The austere face wore a flitting smile. 

“Your majesty is in error,” he returned. “In great 
political catastrophes family incidents disappear. I do 
not know and have no wish to know what my relative 
has done. If he is guiltless of the accusation, he will 
be released in due time, as others have been, though after 
three years. If he be guilty, let justice be done. Nicolini 
is of high race and entitled to the sword, which is of so 
noble a class that even in the headman’s hands it doesn’t 
discredit the victim.” 

The hearer was no little astonished at this calm and 


The Two Admirals. 


•57 

simple dignity, for there was not a shade in his own 
nature. 

'‘But, then, if not to plead for your nephew, what can 
you have called to speak to me about?” 

“I come to speak of yourself and your realm.” 

“Oh, to give counsel ?” 

“If your majesty deigns to consult me, I shall be glad 
and proud to put my humble experience at command. 
In the contrary case, I can as gladly and proudly put 
the lives of the brave seamen I command, and mine, at 
his call.” 

The king chafed to find a vent for vexation ; but, before 
such respect and reserve, he could not be angered. 

“Well, I will consult you, admiral,” he waveringly re- 
joined. 

But a footman, coming out of the private rooms, ap- 
proached the king to speak of some visitor whose name 
Caracciolo did not overhear, and took care not to hear. 

The king turned to the admiral, inquiring: “Might 
what you have to say be said before a witness ?” 

“Before the whole world, my liege!” 

“In that case, let us have the nobleman in ! Besides, 
the comer is more than a witness — he is a friend, an ally, 
a brother officer, as it is ” 

The door opened and an usher called out : 

“The Baron Horatio Nelson of the Nile, and Burnham- 
Thorpe, Duke of Bronte !” 

At the string of titles, a smile, slight but not without 
bitterness, ruffled the Neapolitan’s lips. 

Nelson came in, not knowing whom the monarch was 
conversing with, but, fixing on his foregoer his gray eyes, 
he recognized the admiral. 

“I believe I have no need to present you, gentlemen,” 
remarked the host. “You are acquainted?” 


The Two Admirals. 


158 

“Since we met under the French fire, at Toulon,” re- 
sponded Nelson. > 

“I had the honor to make your acquaintance before 
then/’ corrected Caracciolo, with his usual suavity; “I re- 
member a day when, in a brig, on the coast of Canada, 
you fought four French frigates and gave them the 
slip by taking a passage believed impossible. That would 
be in 1786, I believe, a dozen years ago.” 

Nelson bowed to this honorable flattery. 

“My lord,” said the king, “Admiral Caracciolo has 
come to offer me his counsel on the situation. As you 
know him, sit and listen to what he says. When done, 
you can make any fit answer. I must say beforehand that 
I shall be happy if two illustrious men of naval warfare 
agree in the one mind.” 

“As I am certain my lord is a true friend of the king- 
dom,” took up the Italian, “I hope there will be only 
slight divergences in detail, which will not prevent our 
agreeing at bottom.” 

“Speak away, good Caracciolo,” said the king, using 
the familiar style of the sovereigns to their great peers. 

“Yesterday, there was a rumor in town that, despairing 
of defending your mainland, your majesty would with- 
draw to Sicily. I hope this is wrong !” 

“It looks as if you were of the other side !” 

“Sire, I am always on the side of honor as against 
disgrace ! The honor of your realm is at stake — your own 
name, and that depends on your standing out to the last 
extremity.” 

“But you know the state of affairs?” 

“Yes, sire ; bad, but not lost. The army is dispersed, 
but not destroyed. There must be left some forty thou- 
sand, four times more than the French, and fighting on 
its own ground, in inexpurgable defiles, aided by a 
friendly population of twenty towns and sixty villages, 


The Two Admirals. 


159 


with three impregnable forts, to say nothing of Capua, 
the final rampart of Naples — the French can never pene- 
trate this far !” 

“Would you undertake to rally the army, my lord?” 

“Yes, sire, with my four thousand seamen ! Lord 
Nelson will back me as to sailors being good at anything, 
for he has accomplished wonders by landing seamen for 
land operations. I would fortify the passages and, with 
some as garrison, mount guns and bear the onset if only 
with our boarding pikes. When the soldiers see how we 
rebuff the French charge, terrible though it be, they will 
rally behind us, particularly if your majesty is the living 
standard.” 

“You don’t say so?” mumbled the king, watching Nel- 
son, who kept silent. 

“There will always be time for your majesty to take to 
the ships. The French have no armed craft and your 
majesty has three fleets in the port — the English, the 
Portuguese and your own.” 

“What does my lord say to the admiral’s proposition ?” 
demanded the sovereign of the Briton, thus compelling an 
answer. 

Nelson was striking off meaningless figures on paper 
as he sat. 

“I can say that there is nothing worse in danger than 
to change the course resolved upon.” 

“So the king has come to a resolution?” queried the 
Italian. 

“No; not yet; I hesitate ” 

“The queen has decided on the departure,” replied the 
Englishman. 

“The queen?” exclaimed the other admiral, without 
giving the master time to intervene. “Very well ! let her 
go! In such straits, women may quit; but men ought to 
face the music.” 


i6o 


The Two Admirals. 


'‘But you see, prince, that my Lord Nelson is of the 
opinion that we ought to go.” 

“Pardon me, sire, but I don’t think I have heard my 
lord give any opinion.” 

“I press you to give it, my lord !” said the king. 

“My advice is the same as the queen’s. I shall with 
joy see you seek in Sicily the safety which Naples cannot 
afford.”" 

“I beg my Lord Nelson not to give his advice lightly,” 
remonstrated the Italian, knowing in advance what weight 
was in dicta from one of his merit. 

“I said so, and I do not retract.” 

“Sire, you should not forget that my lord is English.” 

“What do you mean by that, sir?” demanded Nelson, 
sharply. 

“That you would speak otherwise were you Neapoli- 
tan.” 

“Why should I speak otherwise, whatever I was?” 

“Because you would heed your country’s honor instead 
of the interests of England.” 

“What interest has Great Britain in my advice to the 
king?” 

“In enlarging the peril, you swell the reward ! It is 
known that England is after Malta.” 

“England already has Malta, which the king has given 
her.” 

“Oh, sire! I heard so, but I would not credit it,” re- 
proached Caracciolo. 

“Why the sirocco would you want me to hang on to 
Malta ? — a rock only fit to cook eggs on, in the sun !” 

“Sire,” continued Caracciolo, without including Nel- 
son, “I supplicate you in the name of all true sons of 
Naples, to listen no more to foreign advisers who push 
your throne within two inches of the gulf. Lord Acton 
is a foreigner, Sir William Hamilton is another, and so 


The Two Admirals. 161 

is Lord Nelson. How can they be nice judges of Neapoli- 
tan behavior ?” 

“That is fair,” retorted Nelson, “but they can be just 
in appreciating Neapolitan cowardice. That is why I told 
your king, after what passed before Rome, that he could 
no longer trust knaves who abandon him through fear or 
treachery !” 

Caracciolo turned dreadfully pale and his hand was 
going, in spite of his will, to his sword hilt; but as he 
bethought him that Nelson had but one hand, and that his 
left, and that a cripple may learn to handle the pen very 
well without becoming a good swordsman, he restricted 
himself by saying: 

“All peoples have their weak moment. The French, 
before whom we fled, have had three such panics : Poic- 
tiers, Cressy and Agincourt; but at Fontenoy they wiped 
that all out. One victory to three defeats.” 

Caracciolo uttered these words while looking at his op- 
ponent, who bit his lip till the blood came. 

“Sir,” continued he to his king, “it is the duty of a 
ruler loving his people to offer them the chance to blot 
out the failure. Let the king give the word, and not one 
of the invaders will escape alive out of the mountain 
passes, if they have the rashness to dash into them.” 

“My dear Caracciolo,” said the monarch, whose secret 
desire was thus fondled, “your advice is also a man’s, 
whose counsel I appreciate — Cardinal Ruffo’s.” 

“That is all that was lacking,” jeered Nelson; “put a 
churchman at the head of your armies!” with a scornful 
smile. 

“Wait,” quickly observed the taunted one, trying to 
remember; “such a course did not succeed badly with one 
of my forefathers, Louis XIII. or XIV — who set a car- 
dinal at the head of the troops; and — by Jupiter! it is 


1 62 


The Two Admirals. 


Cardinal Richelieu ! — in taking La Rochelle and forcing 
the Susa Pass, he did not do any harm to the monarchy/’ 

“The good spirit of Naples prompts you,” interposed 
Caracciolo, grasping at this hope. “Yield to Cardinal 
Ruffo. Follow his counsel and — what can I say more? 
I will follow his orders !” 

“Sire,” broke in Nelson, rising and bowing to the host 
alone, “your majesty may as well bear in mind that if the 
Neapolitan admirals and generals take orders from a 
priest, an English officer obeys only the orders of his 
government !” 

Flinging on his colleague the threatening glance of un- 
dying hate, the speaker went forth by the private door 
which would lead him to the queen’s suite. 

Ferdinando watched him out, and did not speak until 
the door closed after him. 

“Well, that is pretty return for my thanks, in the shape 
of twenty thousand ducats a year, the duchy of Bronte, 
my sword, which came down from King Philip V., and 
my grand collar of the San Ferdinand order. He is short- 
spoken, but he says quite enough!” 

“My poor Francis, you are right. The country is go- 
ing to the foreigners ! There are outsiders on the inside 
everywhere — and the Neapolitans cannot squeeze into a 
corner. What a bulldog that Nelson is! Never mind! 
you gave him a snarl for his bark ! If ever we go to war 
with England, and you two meet on the seas, you will 
have to look to yourself!” 

“I am happy to have won your approbation at the risk 
of making an enemy of the victor of the Nile.” He 
laughed. 

“Did you notice the wry face he made when — what do 
you call it ? — Fontenoy was thrown up to him ! the English 
were well served at that place?” 

“With reasonable pepper, my liege !” 


The Two Admirals. 


163 

“I am going to see Ruffo to-day, and we will talk 
this over again. But as we are in chat, why the deuce 
did you make an enemy of the queen? You know that 
when she takes a hating, she takes it thoroughly !” 

Caracciolo shook his head, as much as to say that he 
had rib reply to make to the royal misliking. 

“So I may hope that your majesty will renounce the 
shameful running away, and defend Naples to the last 
gasp ?” 

“Carry away better than the hope — the certainty! At 
the council this day I will let them know that I will stay 
in Naples. I have firm in mind your idea about defending 
it. Rest easy ! As for Nelson ? if he is saucy to me again, 
I will fling ‘Fontenoy’ — if I have got that right — into his 
crop !” 

“A last grace! if your majesty changes his mind — if 
you do retrace anything — let me hope that the departure 
will be on a Neapolitan deck !” 

“Also be easy as to that ! If reduced to that extremity 
— but not answering for the queen, who has a will of her 
own ! I pledge you my word of honor that I will sail on 
your own ship, the Minerva. You have your warning: 
bid your cook, if good — or change him ! to lay in a good 
stock of macaroni and Parmesan cheese, if you are not 
well supplied ! That’s a bitter pill, in 'Fontenoy,’ is it 
not?” 

The prince, relying on the double promise and ravished 
at the result of his interview, went away without think- 
ing of his nephew accused of helping the enemy. 

The king eyed him with marked kindliness. 

“Only to think that one is stupid enough to quarrel 
with a man like that for the sake of a termagant like the 
queen, and a hussy like Lady Hamilton !” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


THE EMPEROR'S ANSWER. 

The king kept the promise made to Prince Caracciolo; 
highly and resolutely, he declared to the assembled min- 
isters that the popular desire decided him to remain in 
Naples and defend the entrance of his kingdom against 
the French. Before so firmly expressed a determination, 
open opposition was not possible ; it would have been 
made but by the queen, and Acton assured her that he 
would find the means to induce the king to leave anyway. 

Ruffo had approved of the conduct of Caracciolo toward 
Nelson and had an interview with the admiral. They 
agreed that they would await the rising in the mountains 
and act according to its fruits. This news surpassed all 
hopes. Pronio had set the keynote to his priestly brethren, 
and nobles and magistrates had echoed them. The cry 
of “To arms!” was ringing throughout. He had seen 
Fra Diavolo and the miller, and, with the royal warrant, 
their power was limitless, since they had royal protection. 

Caracciolo had struck the nail on the head, for it 
chimed with English policy that the Sicilian monarchs 
should be on the island where they could expect nothing 
from their own people or army and would have to rely 
wholly on England’s ships and troops. 

Hence, Nelson, Sir William and Emma urged the queen 
to take to flight. Her personal apprehensions strength- 
ened their pleas. The masses so detested her that, while 
they would have defended her husband, they would have 
awarded her imprisonment, if not death. 

Meanwhile, time went on with its unfeeling regularity, 


The Emperor’s Answer. 165 

and though harassed by the irregulars under Pronio and 
the licensed brigands, the French marched in three col- 
umns through the Abruzzi, over the Land of Labor — 
tillage land — and part of the Campania. 

On the eighteenth, General Championnet was at San 
Germano and advancing on Capua. 

Volunteers, headed by nobles, came to take leave of the 
queen and dispute the way with the republicans. 

The nearer the danger, the more all divided into the 
king’s and the queen’s party — this to stand and that to 
flee. 

The twenty-first day opened with one of those three 
days’ hurricanes which the Neapolitans say takes that time 
“Nasce, pasce, moi!” (“Be born, devour and die”!) But 
between the gusts and the showers, the people crowded 
into the streets, goaded by the forerunning of a dire 
catastrophe. 

What denoted an uncommon occurrence was that the 
rabble did not swarm in their own wards. But, long- 
shoremen, fishers, and lazzaroni, all flocked to the quarter 
where the royal palace was the center. 

Among the gatherings were three men, fatally noted 
already by figuring in the riots which had spilled much 
blood. They were Pasquale di Simone, a butcher who 
was called by his trade name, and a monk with the ill- 
chosen epithet of Fra Pacifico. 

All the assemblage, without knowing what was com- 
ing, waited for somebody or some event. The king was 
just as ignorant, but he was rendered uneasy by the gath- 
ering, and peered out of a curtained window, while me- 
chanically stroking his dog, Jupiter, at the sea of heads, 
from which rose shouts of “Long live the king!” or 
“Death to the Jacobins !” 

Carolina, who knew where her partner was, kept in the 
adjoining room, with Acton, ready to act according to 


1 66 The Emperor’s Answer. 

emergencies, while Lady Hamilton was packing up the 
queen’s jewels and secret papers. 

About eleven o’clock, a young man, galloping a speedy 
English horse, came through the concourse by making 
signs to the three mob leaders and, reaching the palace, 
rode in at the grand courtyard gates. Alighting, he 
threw his reins to a groom, and as if informed where he 
might find the queen, walked straight into the cabinet 
where she was closeted with the premier. As if by en- 
chantment, the door had opened, and it shut behind him 
when he had passed. 

“He comes ! he follows so close that he will be here in 
half an hour.” 

“Did you warn those who expect him?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, go to my rooms, and notify Lady Hamilton that 
she may prepare Lord Nelson.” 

The young man ran up the back stairs with a speed in- 
dicating how familiar he was with the inner part of the 
palace, and transmitted the message to Lady Hamilton. 

“Have you a reliable porter for a note to Lord Nel- 
son?” she asked. 

“I am the man.” 

“But you know there is no time to lose!” 

“I think as much !” 

On the queen’s writing-desk she penned this line: 

“Most likely this night. Hold ready! Emma.” 

With the same celerity shown in flying up the stairs, 
the young man hastened down them, and leaving the resi- 
dence, took the slope to the military port. Here he leaped 
into a skiff, and through wind and rain was rowed to the 
Vanguard. With her yards apeak to offer less purchase 
to the gale, she was tugging at her anchors, both down, 
five or six cable lengths off the pier, surrounded by the 


The Emperor’s Answer. 167 

other vessels, English or Portuguese, under Admiral Nel- 
son’s orders. 

The young man, who will have been recognized as 
Acton’s “Dick,” sent in a word of recognition to the Eng- 
lish officer, nimbly mounted the side rope, and, finding the 
commander in his cabin, handed him his missive. 

“Her majesty’s order shall be performed, and to be a 
clear witness, you shall bear them back.” 

Calling his flag captain, he continued : “Hardy, have 
the launch manned and this gentleman taken aboard the 
Alcmena/’ 

Putting the lady’s note in his bosom, he wrote in his 
turn : 

“Most secret !” 

“Three barges and the Alcmena? s cutter, the men carry- 
ing cutlasses only, to be at La Vittoria at half-after seven, 
sharp ! One boat will do the landing ; the others bearing 
off with the oars apeak, ready to drop and spring to it. 
The V 'an guard’ s long-boat will do the speaking and any 
fetching off. All the small craft employed will report to 
Commander Hope alongside the Alcmena, before seven. 

“Mind you have the grapnels in the barges. 

“All the spare boats of the Alcmena and Vanguard will 
have the men armed with steel only, and the launches, 
with their bowguns, will assemble beside the Vanguard , 
under command of Captain Hardy, who will stand out to 
sea at eight precisely and proceed halfway to Molosiglio. 
Four to six marines in each barge. In case of need of 
help, use the flash signals. Horatio Nelson. 

“P. S. — The Alcmena is to be ready to slip her cables 
and set to sea in the night if needs must.” 

While these orders were received with respect equal to 
the punctiliousness with which they were carried out, a 
second horseman had come over the Madalena Bridge, 
and strove to ride up Piliero Street. 

But he found the crowd denser, and spite of his dress 
as a royal messenger, he met difficulty in continuing, even 


1 68 The Emperor’s Answer. 

though he slackened his gait. Moreover, as though it 
were expressly done, rough fellows threw themselves 
against his horse’s shoulder, and these then set to inveigh- 
ing Ferrari, for this was the king’s private courier. 
Habituated to have his coat respected, Ferrari at first re- 
plied with cuts of his whip. The riffraff fell back and 
held their customary peace. 

But at the San Carlo Theatre corner, a man sought to 
cross before the horse and bungled so that he was felled, 
or fell. 

Ferrari reined in, but as the fellow struggled into a sit- 
ting position under the poised fore hoofs, he cried out : 

“I am ridden down by the Jacobin !” 

“Yes,” said a friend of his, running to help him, “it is a 
friend of the French trying to escape in disguise!” 

“That’s a stolen coat of the king’s riders,” said a third. 

All raised the shout : 

“It’s a Jacobin! Death to all Jacobins!” 

Di Simone darted his dagger and the horse was stabbed 
iu the quick in the shoulder. The, “Big Butcher” rushed 
to seize the forelock and with it wrench the head around 
so that, with his own knife, he could slash open the neck 
artery as if a sheep or a calf. The horse reared, neighing 
with pain, and paddled in the air with his fore feet, while 
the bystanders were drenched with gore. The sight of 
blood has a magical influence on the far southerners. 

No sooner were the dregs of the slums splashed with 
blood than they rushed as one wolf upon both man and 
horse. 

Ferrari knew that if his steed went under, he was a 
dead man. He held him up as well as he could with 
bridle and between his knees, but the animal was mortally 
stabbed. After flagging and swerving, he made a des- 
perate leap and it was forward. 


The Emperor’s Answer. 169 

The royal courier felt that the animal was giving way 
beneath him. 

As he was only forty paces from the guardhouse at 
the palace gates, he shouted for help; but his voice was 
drowned under the yells a hundred times reiterated. 

“Death to the Jacobins !” multiplied. 

He pulled a pistol out of the holsters, hoping that the 
detonation would be heard if his voice could not. But at 
that nick, down sank his horse. 

The jerk set his firearm off at random and the bullet 
struck a boy, who fell. 

“The Jacobins are slaying children now!” vociferated 
a man who had had a narrow escape from the shot. 

At this, Fra Pacifico, who was leading a donkey and 
drubbing it with an oak cudgel to reach the scene, burst 
through the murderous mob and saw Ferrari standing up 
over the writhing steed and also near the dying boy. He 
swung his mace and before the hapless Ferrari could 
steady himself, he knocked him down with a single blow. 
But it was ordained that Ferrari should perish under the 
king’s own eyes. 

The five or six hirelings in the secret of the tragedy 
pounced on him and defended him, while the Butcher, 
grasping him by the spurred boots, roared : 

“Make way for the carrion !” 

The horse was left where it quivered, but the harness 
was stripped off. All followed the prize. At twenty 
paces, they were under the king’s windows. Ferdinando 
had opened the blinds to learn the grounds for this awful 
uproar. At seeing him, the din redoubled. 

The main cry denoted that the crowd had secured an- 
other legitimate prey — a Jacobin. He did not at all dis- 
like this summary disposal of his enemies, so he smiled 
and smirked, and bowed to his people. 


170 The Emperor’s Answer. 

Encouraged, they wished to show that they were worthy 
of his laudation. 

They lifted up the miserable Ferrari, bleeding, maimed, 
tattered and torn, but still living; in their upheld arms 
he recovered consciousness. 

He recognized his master, and his arms were extended 
to him, and a voice — if that hoarse sound was a voice — 
faltered : 

“Help, help ! Sire, it is your Ferrari !” 

At this terrible sight, so unexpected and inexplicable, 
the king threw himself back and staggered to the farthest 
corner of the room, where he fell into a chair. 

Quite oppositely, Jupiter, who, being neither man nor 
king, and no more ungrateful than cowardly, emitted a 
howl of grief, and with his jaws frothing, his eyes injected 
with blood, sprang out of the window to assist his friend. 

At this moment, the room door opened, to let the queen 
rush in. She caught her lord by the hand and dragged 
him to the window, where she pointed to the tribe of fiends 
tearing Ferrari in piecemeal, and gasped: 

“Sire, you behold the wretches on whom you rely for 
the defense of Naples and our own. Now, they are cut- 
ting our trusted servitors to pieces — to-morrow they will 
tear our children ! Do you still persist in staying among 
them?” 

“Get all ready ! I will be off this evening !” stammered 
the king. 

Still seeing poor Ferrari hacked to mince, and still hear- 
ing his agonizing call to him for help, he fled with his head 
buried in his hands, his eyes closed, and his ears stopped 
up, to take refuge in his most remote chamber. 

When he slunk forth, two hours afterward, the first 
thing he saw was Jupiter, smothered with blood — not all 
his own! — lying exhausted on a rag which, by the royal 
buttons and the frogs and fur, must have belonged to the 


The Emperor’s Answer. 171 

unfortunate courier. Ferdinando dropped on his knees 
beside the retriever, and made sure that the dog had not 
been deadly wounded. Desiring to know for certain what 
this relic was, so studiously guarded, he drew from under 
him the fragment of the rider’s vest. By a providential 
chance, it was the very portion about the inner pouch for 
carrying dispatches. Undoing the stud inclosing it, he 
found intact the imperial writ which the faithful messen- 
ger was bringing in response to his letter. 

He restored to Jupiter the rag, on which the dog 
crouched himself with a doleful whimper, and returned 
into his room. He locked himself in, unsealed the missive 
and read : 

“To My Dearest Brother, Etc. : 

“I never wrote the letter sent to me by your messenger, 
Ferrari, and it is false from one end to the other. That 
which I have the honor to write to your majesty was 
wholly in my own hand, and instead of exciting you to 
enter into the campaign, it dissuaded you from attempting 
any stroke until next April, when only I could expect 
to see our good and true allies, the Russians, arrive. 

“If the forgers are such as your majesty can seize, 
I do not conceal that I shall be glad to see them punished 
according to their deserts. 

“I have the honor, with respect, to be your majesty’s 
dearest brother, etc., Francis.” 

The queen and Acton had committed a fruitless crime ; 
unless there was good result in its determining Ferdi- 
nando to quit Naples for refuge in Sicily. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE FLIGHT. 

It was settled that the king, the queen, all the royal 
family, except the prince royal, and his children and 
wife, as well as Sir William Hamilton, Acton and the 
palace favorites, should go by the Vanguard. 

It will be remembered that the monarch had promised 
his own admiral that it would be on his ship that he would 
sail from Naples; but, falling again under the queen’s 
yoke, he forgot his pledge for two reasons. 

The first was his shame to face the officer upon break- 
ing his word. The second arose from a hint of his consort 
that Caracciolo, sharing the principles of the Neapolitan 
nobility — the patriotic ones — might, instead of carrying 
the sovereign over to Sicily, hold him as a hostage for the 
Italian Jacobins, who would force him to establish their 
kind of government, or put him on trial, a shade worse, 
as the English had Charles I. and the French, Louis XVI. 

As consolation and damages for the honor he was 
thrust from, the native admiral was to transport the heir 
to the throne and his party. 

All day long, the valuable property to be carried away 
was stowed in a secret passage long unused, for ship- 
ment. 

Ferdinando, having on his mind the queen-Acton 
treachery about his correspondence, shut himself up all 
day and would not receive anybody. This was a special 
bar to Admiral Caracciolo’s learning anything direct. 
From his deck, he saw the passing of boats to and fro 
among the English ships and signals which set him sus- 


The Flight. 173 

pecting something. He also heard that Castelcicala had 
left town suddenly and that Venni was trying in vain to 
see the king, as though to present his farewell, also. 

The king had wished to have Cardinal Ruffo as travel- 
ing companion, but he had noticed that he and Nelson 
did not agree and, besides, the churchman was detested 
by the queen. Ferdinando preferred his repose to such 
jars. And he had no doubt that the cardinal was keen 
enough to come through anarchy itself without his hat 
being knocked off. 

The embarkation was at ten at night. All the party for 
the Vanguard assembled betimes in the queen’s rooms. 

The king came in at the clock stroke, leading his re- 
triever by a leash ; Jupiter was the sole friend on whose 
fidelity he could depend, and, of course, the only one he 
would take along. He had thought of Ascoli, but he 
expected that, like Ruffo, he could take care of himself. 
The larger parlor was badly lit, for it was feared that an 
illumination would betoken that some event was com- 
mencing. The newcomer looked around on the fugitives 
forming different groups. 

The principal was composed of the queen, on a sofa, 
with Lady Hamilton at hand, the four young princesses 
posed by her and the two princes, her favorites, one lean- 
ing on her knee and the other in her lap. The girls were 
seated or reclining. 

Acton, Hamilton and Castelcicala were chatting in a 
window bow, listening to the wind howling and the rain 
pattering on the panes. 

Around a table were the queen’s chosen ladies, the 
Countess of San Marco, her pet, the chief. Afar in the 
dark, was Acton’s confidential man, Richard, who might 
be regarded as in the queen’s service as well as his mas- 
ter’s. 


>74 


The Flight. 

Everybody stood at attention as the ruler arrived, but 
he made a sign that all were to keep their places. 

“Don’t disturb yourself — it is not worth the pains !” he 
said. 

He sat in an armchair by the door, playing with Jupiter. 

The silence was lugubrious, for even those who spoke, 
did so in a low voice. 

It was at the half-hour that the bearer of the starting 
signal was to come. This was Count Thurn, a German 
in the Neapolitan service, put under Nelson’s orders, to- 
gether with Marquis Nizza, commanding the Portuguese 
fleet. 

Thurn had been given a key, the outer door of the 
private passage being a solid and massive one, allowing 
a way out on the military haven. 

The clock chimed the half in the stillness. 

There was almost instantly a knocking heard at the 
great door. Why should the trusted hand knock, when it 
was supplied with the key ? 

In such crises, what would be merely trouble and dis- 
quiet becomes terror. 

The queen started and rose. 

“What’s that?” she murmured. 

The king looked on contentedly ; he did not know what 
had been arranged. 

“It can be none other than the Count of Thurn,” said 
Acton, always calm and logical. 

“Why should he knock ? I gave him a key !” 

“I will go and see, if I am allowed,” was the answer. 

The minister took a candle and stepped into the lobby. 
His royal mistress watched him with anxiety. The 
mournful silence became deadly. But the investigator re- 
turned after a few seconds. 

“The heavy door has not been opened for a long time, 
probably,” he said. So it works hard and the count 


175 


The Flight. 

snapped off the key in the lock. He was forced to knock 
to get into communication with us. I tried myself on my 
side to move the door, but it will not budge.” 

“What’s to be done ?” 

“Break it down; and I gave the word accordingly.” 

In truth, there could be heard the smashing of the door 
by sledge hammers and the panels yielding. But the un- 
usual noise in such premises was ominous. The steps 
approaching and the hand opening the doors were 
Thurn’s. 

“It was an accident impossible to foresee,” he excused 
himself to the queen. 

“It’s a sign !” grumbled she. 

“If that,” interposed the king, “it is a sign that we ought 
to stay here and not go !” 

His partner was afraid that he was returning to his 
own will. 

“Let us begone!” she said. 

“All is ready,” replied Thurn; “only I should impart 
to the king an order given me by Lord Nelson.” 

The monarch rose and went over to the candelabra, 
where the count was waiting with the written order. 
Ferdinando could not read it, as it was in English, so that 
the bearer had to translate it. 

“To the Admiral, Count of Thurn: 

“Gulf of Naples, 21st December. 

“Make the Neapolitan frigates and corvettes ready for 
burning.” 

“You are sure you have not construed that wrong?” 
queried the sovereign. 

“It is so there!” 

“But why burn vessels which we were ten years a- 
building and cost so much?” 

“Because they ought not to fall into the French hands.” 


176 The Flight. 

“Why cannot they, too, sail over to Sicily?” 

“It is Lord Nelson’s order, and I wished to have it re- 
vised by your majesty before putting it before Marquis 
Nizza to be executed.” 

“Sire, sire!” interrupted the queen, “we’re losing pre- 
cious time, and for trifles !” 

“Plague! do you call men-of-war trifles? Look at the 
Navy Budget for the last ten years and you will see that 
they ran into over a hundred millions !” 

“It is eleven, and Lord Nelson is waiting,” she per- 
sisted. 

“You are right to be going, for Nelson does not wait 
for king or queen ! Count, follow those orders and burn 
my fleet. What England cannot take away, she burns. 
Ah, my poor Caracciolo, how right you were, and how 
wrong I am not to follow your advice ! Away, ladies and 
gentlemen! don’t keep my Lord Nelson waiting!” 

Snatching the light from Acton’s hand, he showed the 
lead and all followed him. 

Not only was the Neapolitan fleet doomed, but its king 
had approved the decree. 

Many royal flights have been known since the great 
Revolution, but Ferdinando was the first to make such 
nocturnal and furtive ones. He went on, speechless, lis- 
tening and his heart palpitating. When he got down 
as far as the window before the Giants’ Way, he thought 
he heard steps without, and snuffed the candle with so un- 
steady a hand that he put it out. They were plunged in 
obscurity. All had to feel their way, step by step, on the 
narrow and uneven staircase. 

Still, the last step was reached without mishap, and a 
fresh and damp puff of outer air fanned their faces. 

This was only a few steps from the landing-stage. 

As the waters in the military haven are imprisoned by 
its breakwater, they were fairly calm. But the gale was 





“ He went on, speechless, listening and his heart palpitating.” 

(See page 176) 










































- 






















■ 


177 


The Flight. 

heard roaring and the waves hurled up on the strand. On 
the pier under the castle walls, Thurn looked up wistfully 
and questioningly at the sky. It was loaded low with 
heavy yet swiftly carried clouds. It resembled an aerial 
sea surging down to meet the other one and mingle its 
fury with it. In the narrow space between heaven and the 
deep, coursed the hurricane from the southwest, causing 
wreck and havoc — a thing not unusual in the Bay of 
Naples in the bad season. 

The king intercepted the uneasy glance. 

“If the weather is too bad, let us not go this night,” he 
said. 

“It is Lord Nelson’s order,” replied Thurn; “yet if your 
majesty plumply refuses ” 

“His order! Nelson’s order to override the tempest? 
But there is peril of life here !” said the other testily. 
“Come, do you answer for us, count?” 

“To set you aboard the Vanguard, I will do all that 
is in the scope of a man struggling against wind and 
weather.” 

“God ’a’ mercy, that’s no kind of answering! Would 
you go out for a sail on the bay on such a night?” 

“Your majesty sees that I do — for I am only waiting 
for your majesty to say the word to get to the ship.” 

“I say — were you in my shoes?” 

“In your majesty’s stead, and not taking orders from 
any but events and God, I should look at it 'twice !” 

The queen was fretting, but so powerful was etiquette 
that she did not dare to step down into the waiting boat 
in precedence. 

“Well, what are we waiting for?” she inquired. 

“What ? Did you not hear what Thurn says ? It’s bad 
weather. He will not warrant our safety, and here is 
Jupiter, who gives the best advice by tugging at his thong 
— to go back under cover !” 


178 The Flight. 

'‘Let us return, sir! and let all of us be torn to pieces 
like your unhappy servant. But I would dare the sea and 
its tempest rather than Naples and its hideous population.” 

He looked at her with some sadness as he said : 

“I deplore my faithful servitor more than anybody, I 
beg you to believe, since I know what to think of his 
death! But it is not I who have anything to fear from 
Naples and its folk.” 

“Yes, I know all that,” she returned, sharply. “As 
Naples sees in you a fit representative, she adores you. 
But I have not the happiness to enjoy her favor, and I — 
I go!” 

Casting etiquette to the winds, she went down into the 
boat. The royal children, more accustomed to follow 
their mother than their father, trooped down after her 
like a flock of young swans. 

Young Prince Albert, alone, letting go Lady Hamil- 
ton’s hand, ran to his father and, seizing him by the hand, 
to draw him toward the boat, said : 

“Come with us, father !” 

The king was not in the habit of resisting when he had 
no supporters. He glanced around him for some such 
support, but all eyes fell under his search, although there 
was more appeal for a retreat than fire for the venture. 

Ferdinando felt so lone and cast-off that he hung his 
head and let the prince lead him, while he led his dog, 
the only thing which objected to his quitting the land. He 
went down into the boat and sank on a seat, muttering : 

“Since you all want it so — come, Jupiter, come!” 

Scarcely was the king seated than the naval lieutenant 
who took the coxswain’s post on this occasion, cried out : 

“Put off !” 

Two sailors who had been holding the boat to the stage 
with gaffs, disentangled the hooks and used the points to 


The Flight. 179 

push off and get the head around. Down dropped the 
oars and the boat was headed to sea. 

The boats charged to embark the other fugitives came 
up to the stage and received them. 

How different this stealthy flight in the night, with the 
blasts whistling and the breakers thundering, from the 
joyous feast of the September sunset, when on an even 
sea, to Cimarosa’s music, the ringing of bells, the reso- 
nance of cannon, the same personages went to greet the 
victor of Aboukir Bay. Three months only have passed, 
and now they are driven, fleeing from those French whose 
defeat they had too prematurely toasted, to seek hospi- 
tality in the midnight dark, on the same Vanguard which 
they had welcomed ! 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


A CURIOUS SEA RACE. 

The departure of the ruler left Naples in stupor. To 
see the English vessels disappear on the horizon left all 
in prostration. 

One evening, a strange rumor ran about the streets. 
Those who repeated it, said : “Look out for the fire !” yet 
none knew where the fire was or where it would break 
out. But the people assembled on the waterside, staring. 

A thick smoke rose skyward from the middle of the 
gulf, and drifted from east to west; it was the Neapolitan 
fleet, burning by Nelson s orders and under the Marquis 
Nizza’s supervision. 

It was a gorgeous spectacle, but it was costly! 

Before this great illumination to celebrate the king’s 
abandoning his capital in the face of an advancing foe, 
the illustrious fugitive was on the sea, as related. 

Having had notice of his guests, Lord Nelson was 
making his hospitality afloat as comfortable as possible. 
The admiral had not given up his own cabin, but he had 
housed the newcomers handsomely by providing the gun- 
rooms, from which the guns had been drawn in or other- 
wise disposed of. 

Caracciolo had done more on his ship ; he gave up his 
own cabin to the prince royal. 

They were three days out when the wind fluctuated and 
shifted from south to west-northwest. 

Scarcely had the English admiral perceived this, than 
he gave his captain, Hardy, his friend rather than subordi- 
nate, orders to trim ship. 


A Curious Sea Race. 1 8 1 

“Must we stand out by-and-large from Capri?” asked 
the navigator. 

“With this wind it does not matter. We will sail free.” 

Hardy studied the wind a while and shaking his head, 
responded : 

“I do not believe this will hold.” 

“Never mind; let us get all the profit out of it while 
it blows. Although I am ready to die, and cheer on my 
men to be killed for the king and the royal family from 
the highest to the last, I shall not reckon them in safety 
until landed at Palermo.” 

“What signals are we to show the other craft?” 

“To set sail after our fashion and keep in our wake, 
straight for Palermo, get there as they please.” 

But off Capri, the wind failed, as Hardy had foreseen. 

This calm gave the passengers time to take a little food 
and rest, for they had been sick and worried after the 
start. Lady Hamilton had the English sea-footing and 
was fair as if on a meadow instead of the slimy deck. 
She had remained with the queen while her husband 
messed with the officers. 

Nelson came on deck after supper. It was to be feared 
that during the night would come a high wind or a squall. 

The king had thrown himself on a bed, but not to sleep ; 
he was no better seaman than warrior. All the sublime 
aspects and grand movements of the sea escaped him 
entirely. He knew nothing about it but the dangers and 
the sickness. About midnight, finding that slumber still 
failed him, however he might toss and turn, he left the 
stateroom and, followed by his tenacious Jupiter, went 
up the companion stairs. 

And soon as his head passed above the deck level, he 
spied Nelson and his navigating officer, probing the 
heavens with seeming anxiety. 

“You were right, Hardy. Your old experience does not 


A Curious Sea Race. 


182 

go begging. I am a sea soldier, while you are a seaman. 
Not only has the wind blown itself out, but we shall have 
another gale, and a fierce one.” 

“Saying nothing, my lord, about our being in a poor 
position to bear the brunt of it. We had better have taken 
the Minerva's route.” 

Nelson growled in ill humor. 

“I no more 'like the great Mogul, that haughty Carac- 
ciolo, than you, but it must be acknowledged — to give the 
devil his due — that the compliment you paid me is his 
rating also. He is a thorough sea dog and the proof is 
that, in passing between Capri and Campanella Head, 
he hugged the island so that the gale spared him and tem- 
pered the rainfall. While we caught the blast and the 
drencher !” 

Nelson had turned slowly to the black cloud looming 
up before them. There was no shelter there. 

“Well, we are a mile ofif Capri, anyway !” he remarked. 

“I would it were twenty,” muttered Hardy, low, but not 
low enough to escape his superior’s ear. 

A gust out of the west sprang up and lashed their 
faces, precursor of heavier attacks. 

“Have the topsails taken in, and close up to the wind.” 

“Has your lordship no fear for the sparring?” asked 
the officer, remembering the shot still embedded in the 
masts. 

“I am afraid of the coast — that is all,” was the reply. 

In that full, sonorous voice of the seaman who outroars 
the winds and waters, were repeated the directions which 
concerned the boatswain and the helmsman : 

“Hand in those topgallant sails! Luff!” 

The king had heard this talk and the commands with- 
out understanding anything; he divined, however, that 
danger impended and would come out of the west. He 
had finished the task of getting out upon the deck. 


A Curious Sea Race. 183 

Though Nelson did not understand Italian any better 
than he did English, he asked him : 

“Is there any danger?” 

Nelson bowed, but turning to his officer, he said : 

“I believe his majesty does me the honor to question 
me. If you can make heads or tails of his lingo, Hardy, 
give him an answer.” 

“There is not a jot of danger aboard a ship commanded 
by Lord Nelson, sire,” returned the other Englishman, 
“because, do you see? he foresees the danger. But I be- 
lieve we are going to have a squall.” 

“A squall — yes, but I thought I had heard enough of 
squalls already !” 

The seaman could not withhold his smile. 

“Yet it is pretty fair weather after what we left port 
with, for me !” remarked the royal voyager, contemplating 
the moon gliding over a snowy sky broken up with rifts 
through which rich blue showed. 

“Oh, sire, you should not look up overhead. But over 
yon, on the sea and sky line, before us. D’ye see that 
black line slowly rising and parted from the sea by just a 
streak of white, as it might be a silver hair ? Well, in ten 
minutes that black squall will burst right on us.” 

The second gust was laden with spray or rain. Under 
its pressure, the Vanguard lay down to it, or, rather, 
from it, and groaned. 

“Clew up the mainsail,” struck in Nelson, taking com- 
mand direct to leave his sailing-master to continue the 
conversation with the pupil in navigation. “Haul in the 
mainjib !” 

The operations were performed with a promptness 
which proved that the men knew their importance, and the 
ship, relieved of some of her canvas, ran under her stay- 
sails, the three topsails and the flying- jib. 

Nelson spoke a few words in English to his officer. 


A Curious Sea Race. 


184 

“Sire!” interpreted the second, “my lord begs me to 
point out to your majesty that the squall will burst on us 
pretty quick, and that it will have no more respect to your 
head than to the curly pate of our sauciest middy.” 

“Might I go and cheer up the queen and tell her that 
there is no real danger?” asked the king, not sorry to be 
cheered up at the same time into the bargain. 

“Why not, sire? With the help of the cherub that sits 
up aloft and my lord, I will answer for the whole basket 
of fish.” 

The monarch went below, followed by Jupiter, who 
whined pitifully, for he had the animal’s sensitiveness of 
discomfort. 

As predicted, the squall came along, and with frightful 
thunder and a deluge, it declared war on the whole fleet. 
Ferdinando had things against him ; for, after having 
been betrayed on land, he was buffeted by the sea, also 
traitor to him. 

In spite of the assurance conveyed to her by the king 
coming down, the queen understood by the first shocks 
that the Vanguard was the plaything of the storm. Next 
under the deck, she could tell by the quick patter of the 
sailors’ feet that the danger was great ; mighty were their 
efforts against it. She sat on her bed with all her brood 
about her. 

Lady Hamilton kept running from one to another, giv- 
ing hot tea to her mistress and sweet lemonade to the chil- 
dren, and uttering words of cheer and devotedness. 

Nelson came down in half an hour, as the squall was 
over. But the squall, which is sometimes a mere passing 
freak to clear the sky, is at others herald of a hard 
storm. Fie could hardly aver to the lady that all was over 
and promise her a quiet night. 

On her invitation, he had a cup of tea with her. The 
children, through fatigue and the recklessness of their 


A Curious Sea Race. 185 

age, dropped off to sleep, not having their elders’ fears 
to keep them awake. 

The admiral had not been a quarter of an hour below 
when, while studying the ship by her movement, he heard 
a gentle knock at the door. It opened on the queen bid- 
ding the visitor come in, and a young naval officer ap- 
peared. It was clear that he came for his officer. 

“It’s you, Mr. Parkinson, is it? What is wrong, sir?” 

“My lord, the captain sends me to say that the wind 
has got round to the south, and that if we stand on in this 
course we shall be thrown upon Capri.” 

“Well, stand off, then !” 

“Ah, but it is a rough sea, and the old ship labors and is 
losing speedway.” 

“Oh, oh ! so you are afraid that she will miss stays ?” 

“The good old bark would go to the bottom, my lord.” 

Nelson rose, bowed to the hostess and the king, and fol- 
lowed the lieutenant. 

The king did not know English, but the queen did ; still, 
the sea terms bothered her; she only judged that there 
was a fresh danger. She looked inquiringly at Lady 
Hamilton. 

“It appears that a difficult maneuver must be attempted, 
and they do not dare try it in Lord Nelson’s absence.” 

The hearer frowned and moaned a little. Emma tot- 
tered over to the door and listened there. 

Valuing the strait, Nelson had hurried to his station. 
The wind was the dreadful African sirocco and the ship 
had it dead aft. 

The admiral’s look around him was rapid and wary. 
Though cloudy, there was a tendency to clear up. Capri 
stood out to larboard, and the glimmer of the moon, flit- 
ting through the vapor, allowed one to spy the white 
points, which were the whitewashed houses. Most to be 
discerned was the long, snowy fringe, being the shore, all 


A Curious Sea Race. 


1 86 

its line, covered with surf to a height appalling, inland. 
With the glance, the seafarer had judged the situation. 
The wind overfilled the sails ; masts and yards, creaked 
with the strain. 

“We must wear ship,” he said to his second. 

Veering was hazardous, as, if the ship did not turn 
handily, she would be swept upon shore. 

Scarcely was the helm shifted and the sails trimmed 
for the turning to go off on quite another tack, than it 
would seem that winds and waves understood the inten- 
tion and united to oppose it. The upper sails pressed still 
more heavily on the yard and the mast, which whipped 
like a reed. A terrible crack was heard. If the topmast 
went by the board, the vessel would be lost. 

At this moment of anguish, the commander felt a light 
touch on his left arm ; turning his head, he saw Emma. 

He stopped a moment to plant a kiss on her enfevered 
forehead, then stamping his foot as if the wood were liv- 
ing flesh, he growled : 

“Why the deuce don't you obey the tiller ? — get around 
with you !” 

The Vanguard obeyed. She fell off sluggishly, but re- 
gained her impetus and went about neatly; after some 
minutes of doubt, she ran off, slanting to the west-north- 
west. 

“That’s it !” said Nelson ; “now, we cannot run into any 
land till we cross a hundred and fifty leagues clear !” 

He breathed again. 

“My dear Lady Hamilton, will you kindly translate 
into Italian what his lordship has just said?” 

It was the king’s voice, for he had followed the lady 
upon deck. 

The explanation was given him. 

“Dear me!” said he, without any idea of maritime 
problems; “it seems to me that this road will never bring 


A Curious Sea Race. 187 

as to Sicily, for the boat is headed for Corsica, if any- 
where.” 

To the Englishwoman's repetition of the criticism, Nel- 
son replied, with some impatience : 

“Sire, we have to move like the bishop in chess, since 
we cannot go in the teeth of the wind. If your majesty 
will stay on deck, in another twenty minutes, it will be 
seen that we take another turn and so regain the space 
if not the time we lose.” 

“I think I understand what you are doing. But it did 
not need any more spinning and turning to churn up my 
soul in me ! I wish there was a little less whirling, if you 
could manage it !” 

“Sire, if we were on the Atlantic and the wind were 
against us, but you wanted to reach Rio or the Azores, I 
would tack in ‘legs’ of sixty or eighty miles, so that your 
majesty would be spared attacks of what I am not spared 
either; but we are in a land-locked sea, this Mediter- 
ranean, and we can tack only in a few-mile reaches.” 

“Reaching!” repeated the king, rolling his eyes. 

“Anyway,” went on the seaman, glancing at disappear- 
ing Capri, “your majesty may rejoin the queen and en- 
courage her, for I answer that all goes well !” 

The king drew a breath of relief, though he had not 
literally traced the speech ; but the words were pronounced 
with such conviction that it passed from Emma to him. 
So he went below, and announced that all danger of being 
wrecked was passed, which assurance the lady confirmed. 
In half an hour, the queen, completely set at ease, was 
slumbering on her friend’s shoulder. 

The burst of wind which almost hurled Nelson on the 
Capri strand had shaken Caracciolo, but not so sensibly. 
Part of the violence had been diminished by his sheltering 
himself by the isle to windward; besides, having a lighter 
craft, the Italian admiral had been able to manage more 


A Curious Sea Race. 


1 88 

easily than his rival in the Vanguard , disabled, and her 
standing sticks weakened by shot. 

When, after a few hours’ rest, Nelson came on the 
afterdeck at daybreak, he saw that while he had with 
great pains doubled Capri Head, Caracciolo and his ship 
had reached Cape Licosa, giving him some twenty miles’ 
advance. Better than this; while the Briton was sailing 
under topsails, staysails and outer jib, the Italian had full 
sail spread and, at every tack, gained on the wind. 

Untimely enough, the king came on deck just then, 
and caught Nelson, through his spyglass, viewing his col- 
league. 

He asked the officer of the watch where they were. 
He was amazed to be told that the rock in sight, though 
they had passed it, was still Capri. They had not run 
twenty miles since three o’clock the day before ! 

The admiral wanted to know what dashed the royal 
spirits, but only snapped his fingers when told that it was 
on account of the little progress made. As this gesture 
was rather disrespectful, the monarch resolved to be re- 
venged by humbling his pride. 

“What was his lordship gazing at when I came here?” 
he inquired. 

“That ship a-weather of us.” 

“You mean, ahead?” 

“It is and it isn’t!” 

“What is it? anything to do with us? I can’t presume 
that, for, the Vanguard being the best ship and the best 
seaman commanding her in our Lord Nelson, no captain 
of a ship could outstrip us, I suppose.” 

Nelson bit his lip when this remark was intensified by 
being put in terse English. 

“The king’s right,” he said ; “none ought to outstrip the 
admiral’s flag, especially when his ship has royalty aboard. 


A Curious Sea Race. 


189 

So the committer of this rudeness should be punished, and 
on the spot. Just signal for Prince Caracciolo to fall off 
and wait for us.” 

By the speaker’s countenance, Ferdinando had guessed 
that his shot had told, and having also felt sure by the 
curt, imperative tone that Nelson was administering a 
reprimand, he watched the officer carry out the order. 

He went away to the signaling chest and returned with 
an armful of flags. He attached them to the halyard in a 
fixed order and by his own hand. 

“Did you send word to the queen that a gun is to be 
fired so that she will not take alarm ?” asked the chief. 

Hardy nodded. There was no use in his speaking, as 
a gunshot went off and a booming column of smoke 
rushed out of the upper gundeck. Five flags strung on 
the line were simultaneously run up to the gaff, trans- 
mitting Nelson’s snub with full naval bluntness. The 
signal shot was to attract the Minerva's attention, and she 
hoisted a flag to signify “warning heeded.” But whatever 
effect the rebuff made on the Neapolitan, he did not waver 
in obeying. 

In came his topsails, down fluttered outermost jib and 
the topgallant sails sagged. Nelson watched this with his 
glass. He saw the Minerva under reduced canvas; only 
the jib and mainsail remained full, so that the frigate 
lost three parts of her way ; while on the other hand, the 
English flagship, as the wind calmed a little, had all her 
cloth put out, except the skysails. 

In a few hours the Vanguard had recovered all the 
gain the Minerva had enjoyed. It was then only that 
the latter resumed all sail set. But though Caracciolo 
had so little offered to the wind, he did not lose a length 
while keeping a quarter of a mile behind the Vanguard , 
though this massy colossus had every stitch spread. 


A Curious Sea Race. 


190 

On seeing this facility of his admiral in evolutions, the 
Minerva obeying her director like a good steed, Ferdi- 
nando began to regret that he had not embarked with his 
old friend, the prince, as he had promised, instead of on 
the Vanguard. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


KING DEATH COMES ABOARD. 

The course was in long stretches all day, which became 
more distressing as the sea roughened. 

Delicate always, the young Prince Albert could not re- 
sist these shocks ; he had become exhausted with suffer- 
ing and reposed without rest on Emma’s lap. At each 
laying over on a fresh tack, his pangs increased. About 
three o’clock, his nurse mounted on deck. 

It required no less than her presence to unwrinkle Nel- 
son’s front. She came to say that the prince was worse 
and that the queen begged to know if they could not be 
landed somewhere or the ship motion moderated. They 
might make in at St. Euphemia Gulf, but what would 
Caracciolo think of this backing out ? That the Vanguard 
could not keep the open sea and that the vanquisher of 
men had been overcome by Neptune? 

His maritime disasters were memorable, nearly as much 
so as his victories. Not a month anterior, in the Gulf of 
Lyons, he had been met with a wind which broke off his 
three masts so that he had to enter Cagliari harbor in 
tow, this other ship of his being less damaged. 

Nelson questioned the skies with that deep-seeking eye 
of the navigator to which no dangers are unsignaled. 

The weather was not reassuring. Lost in clouds which 
the sun but faintly tinged with its yellow hue, it slowly 
faded out in the west, cutting the sky with those rays 
which augur high winds and cause pilots to say : “The sun 
is drawing up our anchors.” 

“The lighthouse of the Mediterranean,” Stromboli, 


192 King Death Comes Aboard. 

which they heard in the distance, was lost to sight, as 
well as the archipelago surrounding it, in the foggy mass 
floating on the very waters and seeming to come forward. 
On the other, or northern side, the outlook was less ob- 
scured ; but as far as eye could reach, no ship was sighted 
but the Minerva, which seemed the Vanguard's shadow 
as she imitated all her moves. 

The other vessels, profiting by the admiral’s leave, “in- 
dependent sailing,” had stood out to the open or taken 
refuge in Castellamare port. 

If the wind held and they stuck to the route to Palermo, 
they would have to reach to and fro all night long and 
probably the next day. 

Two or three more days at sea were more than the 
young prince could bear, affirmed Lady Hamilton. If, 
however, with this same wind, they headed for Messina, 
they might get in there in the night. 

Thus acting, Nelson was not revoking his plan, but 
acceding to the king’s order. So he ordered the change, 
and after reflecting on the form to preserve his pride, 
sent the word to the consort frigate : 

“King’s order for Vanguard to steer for Messina. 
Minerva can continue to Palermo.” 

Caracciolo signaled that he would obey. The Vanguard 
shook out her sails and had but to shift her helm to bear 
off on the new destination, for if they met with mishap 
there was still St. Euphemia’s to put into. 

The Englishman gave a last look at the Minerva, which 
shot off light as a gull, over the creaming sea, and leaving 
the deck to the officer, went down to dinner in the main 
cabin. 

Hearty eater as was Ferdinando, not even he bore him 
company. Besides the tribute to the greater king at sea 
than he on land, a deep and growing disquiet suspended 
the cravings of appetite. Still, Nelson’s company cheered 


King Death Comes Aboard. 193 

the illustrious fugitives, and all drew up to the board, with 
the exception of Lady Hamilton and the prince, whose 
sickness was alarming. The doctor was doing his best for 
him, but the specific, we know, had not been found in those 
days. Weak tea and lemonade was prescribed, and as 
the fretful sufferer would take nothing from any hand 
but Emma’s, the mother was compelled to abandon him 
entirely to the English woman, whom the boy called “his 
auntie.” 

Insensible to others’ woes, the king had personal trou- 
bles which prevented him from attending to his son, 
though he was really more tender than his wife. 

In order to be nearer to Emma, Nelson was forced to 
inquire closely about the child. The wind moderated, and 
the ship began to careen and right itself ; after the pitch- 
ing and tossing, the rolling. Torment after torture. 

Nelson gazed on the apparently lifeless child. 

“Ay, I feel why the queen asked to be landed any- 
where,” he said. “Unhappily, I do not know in the whole 
Lipariot Archipelago one port where I can risk the Vcm<- 
gnard with her draught. On top of that, we have the for- 
tunes of a kingdom to bear, and we are so far from 
Messina, Milazzo and St. Euphemia’s.” 

“But it seems to me the storm is quieting,” observed 
Emma. 

“You mean, the wind is slackening, for we have not had 
anything like a storm this day. Lord save us from a 
storm in these waters ! Yes, the wind is falling off, but it 
is but a truce, and I shall not hide from you my fears that 
we may have a worse night than the last.” 

“What you say is not enlivening, my lord !” broke in the 
queen, who had been listening and knew enough English 
to seize the pith of this. 

“But you may rest certain that respect and attachment 
watch over you !” was his reply. 


194 King Death Comes Aboard. 

Lieutenant Parkinson came to confer with his superior, 
who stood aside with him. They whispered briefly to- 
gether. 

“All right !” returned the commander in his stern, offi- 
cial voice. “Make fast all the guns with the strongest 
tackle. I am going on deck. Madam,” he went on, to the 
queen, “if I had not so precious a charge, I should let my 
officers work the ship, but having the honor of a king on 
board, I must manage all myself. Do not be disquieted 
if I have to deprive myself of the honor of being by you.” 

Ferdinando stopped him on the way out as if he would 
go with him. 

“For Heaven's sake, madam, prevail on the king to 
stay here. Up there he would demoralize the officers !” 

On this broad hint being transmitted, the sovereign 
dropped into an easy-chair, muttering : 

“Oh, Caracciolo!” 

The commander had not set one foot on the deck before 
he saw that not only was a serious event portending, but 
an unexampled one had happened. The serious portent 
was in the on-comer being a tempest. The unexampled 
occurrence was that the compass needle had lost its steady 
attraction and was varying from north to east. He com- 
prehended that a magnetic current was created by the ac- 
tion of the volcano near by, and the magnetic needle 
yielded to the influence. 

By worse luck, it was a dark night ; not a star above by 
which to steer the ship. 

If the south wind softened and the sea smoothed, the 
danger would grow less and even disappear. The ship 
could be stripped and laid by to await daylight. But the 
things were not in this state, and it was evident that if 
the wind ceased to come out of the south it would rush 
from another quarter. In fact, the blast sank to gusts 


King Death Comes Aboard. 195 

and they to puffs, and finally died out, and soon the sails 
were heavily flapping against the masts. 

The calm was alarming over the waste. 

Men and officers eyed each other in distress. This 
menacing suspension of hostility by the elements was 
like the truce granted by a foe, not altogether for pre- 
paring for renewed action, but for making peace with 
Heaven. The flame in a battle lantern rose upright with- 
out a tremor. The waves slapped the sides of the ship 
with a sad sound, and the depths of ocean emitted sounds 
of mysterious solemnity. 

‘‘Nasty night at hand, my lord,” said Hardy. 

“Pooh ! Not so dreadful as that day in Aboukir Bay !” 
was the response. 

“Do we hear thunder? That’s odd, for it booms dead 
ahead and the fresh wind is getting up aback!” 

“It is the thunder of Stromboli ! We are going to have 
a terrible thwack ! Take in all sail !” 

Excited by the danger, the topmen flew nimbly into the 
rigging and in five short minutes the vast sheets of can- 
vas were rendered inoffensive and bound to the yards. 

• The calm deepened. The waves ceased to lick the ves- 
sel’s sides. The sea was smoothed as though aware that 
something violent was nigh. Light veils streaked the 
sky and circled around the topgallant masts, a token of the 
coming whirlwind. 

All at once, as far as the eye could reach in the gloom, 
the surface of the sea was seen to heave and, next, to 
undulate. This broke into foam, and a terrifying roaring 
raced over the froth, spurred by the west wind, which 
smote the vessel so fiercely that her masts sloped under 
the irresistible blow. 

“Port your helm!” shouted Nelson. “Port!” He 
added, but it was to himself, so low was the tone : “Life 
is at stake !” 


196 King Death Comes Aboard. 

The men at the wheel obeyed; but, for an instant, the 
ship refused to right herself. During this space of anx- 
ious expectation, a cannon to starboard, breaking from 
its lashings and rolling clear across the deck, killed one 
and crippled five or six men. 

Hardy took a step to jump down on the ’tween-deck, 
but his chief stopped him by grabbing his arm, saying: 

“Keep cool! Bid the men have their axes ready. I 
shall raze the hull to a tub, but I’ll bring her through!” 

“She rises ! She rises !” rang out a hundred voices of 
the crew. 

Truly, the gallant bark rose slowly and majestically, 
like a courteous and courageous adversary saluting before 
really plunging into a fight. Ceding to the rudder, and 
swinging her sturdy high poop around to the fury, she 
cleft the surge, running before the turbulence. 

“Is the compass true again?” cried the admiral. 

“No, my lord,” answered Hardy, returning. “I am 
afraid that we are running straight upon Stromboli.” 

At this, as if retorting to a thunder-burst of the west, 
one of those rumblings was heard presaging an eruption ; 
an immense spout of fire gushed up to the very sky, but 
was almost immediately smothered in the rain. But this 
jet of flame had illumined things for a mile away. They 
were hurried toward this natural pharos, whose light 
seemed enkindled expressly for the Vanguard's use. 

“Hard a-starboard !” cried the officer to the steersmen. 

The ship headed from the east-south-east to the south- 
east. 

“Your lordship is aware that, from Stromboli to Pana- 
ria, a distance of some seven or eight miles,” interjected 
Hardy, “the sea is speckled with reefs and islets flush 
with the water?” 

“Yes, sir. So put one of your sharpest lookouts for- 
ward, and one of your best boatswains in the fore 


King Death Comes Aboard. 197 

weather-shrouds and send me Lieutenant Parkinson to 
oversee the heaving of the lead.” 

“I will do it myself. Hi ! bring a lantern into the main- 
mast chains and Your lordship must have a chance 

to hear what I sing out !” 

This order had prepared the hearers for a crisis. Nel- 
son went around to the binnacle to see if the compass 
had corrected itself, but the needle was fluctuating still. 

“Land ahead !” called out the most forward hatch. 

“Larboard the helm !” shouted Nelson. 

The ship closed to the south. A cracking was heard 
out of a kind of cloud enveloping the bow. This was the 
parting of many ropes; and an immense strip of canvas, 
torn from the reefing-knots and yard, was carried away. 

“That’s nothing!” jeered Hardy. “But there goes the 
jib, blown out of the bolt-ropes!” 

“Breakers a-weather!” cried the lookout. 

It was vain to try to veer in that strait, and they would 
probably miss stays. 

Nelson reasoned with himself that rarely are islands 
so near that a vessel even of bulk cannot crash between 
them. English oak and coral ! pooh ! 

“Tiller a-starboard!” said he. 

This word made all quiver. This was going on still 
into the onslaught — taking the bull by the horns, as the 
popular saying is. 

“The lead, the lead?” queried the admiral. 

“Ten fathoms,” replied Hardy, reading the dripping 
line. 

“Stand by, all hands!” cried Nelson. 

“Breakers to la’board !’ said the lookout. 

Nelson approached the bulwarks and saw the sea 
storming up over some obstacle half a cable length off. 

But the Vanguard was rushing so fast that she already 
was passing them. 


198 King Death Comes Aboard. 

“Steady !” said the commander to the men steering. 

“Breakers on the sta’board !” cried the lookout. 

“The lead?” demanded Nelson. 

“Six!” replied Hardy. 

“We are in the passage between Stromboli and Pan- 
aria,” remarked Nelson, as if verifying by a chart. “In 
ten ticks, we are safe — or in Davy’s locker !” 

Indeed, instead of that regularity which rolling waves 
always maintain even at the typhoon’s heights, these bil- 
lows seemed dashing against one another, and there could 
be discerned amid the tufts of foam and spray a chaos 
in which howled all the hellhounds of Scylla. 

One narrow ribbon wound between two rolls of break- 
ers. 

This was the thin channel through which the Vanguard 
was to be threaded. 

The water had shallowed to six fathoms. The admiral 
frowned, for the ship would touch bottom at five. 

Word came from the master-steersman. The ship was 
losing way; her speed sensibly was reduced. 

Nelson looked about him. The wind, cut and broken 
by the islands amid which the Vanguard had been swept, 
would have been caught only in the upper sails if they 
could be stretched. On the other hand, something under 
the keel impeded the pace. 

It was still six fathoms. 

The chief steersman was an old Sicilian who noticed 
that the admiral was cogitating. He begged to be let say 
a word. He explained that a current was setting in 
through the narrows. By luck, it would give half a foot, 
if not a foot, of more water. It would be felt as far as 
Paolo, which placed the admiral more at ease. 

“Make ready to hoist up the topsails and topgallant 
sails,” ordered the chief. 

Though this astounded the crew, it was executed with 


King Death Comes Aboard. 199 

that mute and passive obedience which is the mariners’ 
first characteristic, more particularly in danger. The 
order was no sooner repeated by the boatswains than the 
sails were seen aloft to be shaken out, fall into place and, 
drawn taut, belly out. Only on high did they hold the 
wind. 

“She’s going again !” ejaculated the old helmsman, joy- 
ously, indicating that he had been worried by the fear that 
the Vanguard would wallow in the trough instead of 
tracing the restricted route laid down for her safety. 

The next sounding gave seven fathoms. 

But the lookout in the foretop called down : “Breakers 
ahead !” 

“Breakers a-starboard!” shouted the watcher, cling- 
ing to the capstern at the heel of the jibboom. 

“Hard a-starboard!” roared Nelson; “hard, hard, 
hard !” 

The triple repetition of the direction proved the im- 
minence of the danger; for to tell the truth, the vessel 
was obeying the impulse of the two men bearing all their 
weight and strength on the spokes of the wheel : the fly- 
ing jibboom was well over the crest of foam seething 
on a reef. All followed the ship’s movement. If she 
was ten seconds more sluggard to the rudder, she would 
run on the rocks. 

Unfortunately in turning off she came more in the 
wind and was meeting with no resistance. A frightful 
squall beat on her, and for a second time bowed her down 
so that the tips of the studding sailbooms skimmed the 
silvery wave tops. At the same time the masts so 
creaked and squeaked, and as if the lower rigging alone 
held the frame together, all three topgallant masts snap- 
ped and leaped over with a tremendous crash. 

Nelson’s voice rose above the storm ; 


200 


King Death Comes Aboard. 

“Topmen, up aloft — with your knives and your teeth, 
cut away and cast over the side !” 

To anticipate this order, a dozen men had been fret- 
ting against the curb of discipline. At this spur, they 
bounded up the chains and shrouds, and scaled the rat- 
lines like a troop of monkeys. In a trice they were in 
the maze of splinters and tangled cordage, slashed and 
plucked asunder with such fierceness that in a few min- 
utes sails, ropes and chips all were in the sea. 

The good ship rose, but slowly, to the level keel. But 
while she was recovering, an enormous green sea flung 
itself so forcibly over upon the foredeck that the whole 
caved in, unable to bear the weight. Under this, the 
forecastle true-deck luckily resisted the pressure and she 
did not go down. The water choked up the scuppers 
and ran off to lee like a waterfall. It was a miraculous 
escape, and the seamen looked up at each other like men 
returning to their senses after a deadly swoon. 

As the ship shook herself of the residue of the cata- 
ract, a woman’s voice was heard in a scream : 

“My lord, in Heaven’s name, come down to us !” 

Nelson could but recognize Emma Hamilton’s voice 
calling him to her aid. He glances anxiously around 
him. 

In the rear, Stromboli was rumbling and fuming. On 
either hand, immensity. Forward the sheet of water 
stretching to the Calabrian coasts, on which the stag- 
gering giant, though crippled, traversed the shoals and 
rocks, the vanquisher ! 

The order was given to take in the topsails, but leave 
the mizzen and staysails. Nelson handed his deck-offi- 
cer the speaking-trumpet — the badge of command — and 
hastened to go down the companionway. At the foot 
of it he found Lady Hamilton. 

“Oh, my friend, come ! come quick ! The king is mad 


201 


King Death Comes Aboard. 

with fright! the queen is in a swoon! and the young 
prince is dead!” 

Nelson entered. 

The king was on his knees, his face buried in the cush- 
ions of a sofa, while the queen had fallen on a divan, 
holding in her arms the dead body of her son. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


THE SEA SENDS STORMS. 

As host the admiral was bound to invigorate his illus- 
trious guests in their calamity. 

“Madam/’ he said, “I can do nothing against the grief 
befallen you, as it comes of heaven, which should comfort 
you; but I can aver that the survivors need can believe 
they are pretty well out of danger.” 

“Do you hear that, dear queen !” exclaimed Emma, 
lifting up Carolina’s head. 

“I don’t understand a word of your gibberish, but if it 
is said that all is serene, why, it is done out of kind- 
ness !” the king said, slightingly. 

“My lord says so because it is the plain truth !” 

The king, getting up, whisked the dust off his knees. 

“Are we in at Palermo?” he inquired. 

“Not quite,” was the answer; “but as we shall have a 
favorable wind by daybreak, we ought to be there this 
evening. We deviated solely to oblige the queen.” 

“Yes, say by my entreaty and not my order. At pres- 
ent, go where you please. It is all one now to me, for 
my poor darling lies dead in my arms.” 

“Hence I am seeking the king’s instructions.” 

“As you assert there is no more danger, my instruc- 
tions are to put us on land at Palermo as well as any- 
where else. But,” continued Ferdinando, staggering as 
the ship gave a lurch and recovered, “it strikes me that 
there is a plague of agitation in your floating castle, and 
though we are eager to say good-riddance to your hard 


The Sea Sends Storms. 20} 

blow, which is not a tempest, it is in no hurry to shake 
us off!” 

“In earnest, we are clearly not quits with it,” re- 
sponded the admiral. “But I am much mistaken if the 
hottest spells are not over. My advice is that your royal 
highnesses ought to take the repose you need and let 
us take care of the passage.” 

Ferdinando turned to his wife, who answered: 

“I say that his lordship’s advice is always good to fol- 
low, particularly when it is in matters of the sea.” 

Nelson bowed at being given a free hand, and as he 
was naturally of a tender heart, and, as a curate’s son, 
devout, he murmured a “God rest the little one?” as he 
passed by the dead princeling. 

When he took his place on deck again, dawn was peep- 
ing. Worn out, the tempest was sighing its last — ter- 
rible sighs, like the panting of the Titan under Sicily, 
who moved it every time he stirred in his grave. Nel- 
son cast a glance on the splendid page of nature’s album 
unrolled under his gaze, but he had too often seen it to 
be long absorbed. 

He called his sailing-master to ask his opinion on the 
weather. 

“Why,” cried Hardy, “the storm is washed out. We 
shall have a change of wind, and, anyway, it will further 
our running into Palermo. I’ll undertake to redeem 
your promise thereto, to those royals.” 

“But you are as tired as I, for you have had no more 
rest.” 

“Well, that being so, let us take it watch-and-watch. 
Let your lordship turn in for four or five hours, while, 
whatever happens, you know that with me on deck, 
I am not a whit dashed when I have blue water on every 
hand! Come the wind from any-guess-where, I will 


204 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


make it send us toward Palermo, so that, when you turn 
out, why, we shall be on the route.” 

As the admiral was not a hale man, he gave way and 
went below for his few hours’ sleep. When he came up 
it was eleven in the day. 

The wind was south and fresh, and the Vanguard , at 
eight knots, had doubled Cape Orlando. 

Nelson gave his faithful second a shake of the hand 
as thanks for his substitution, and bade him take his 
turn-in. 

Seeing that all was going well, he went down to the 
mid-decks where the chaplain had laid out the young 
prince on Lieutenant Parkinson’s bed. The lifeless boy 
seemed sleeping. Nelson was surprised, and felt a pang 
that he should be here mourning when those to whom 
the child should be dearest, father, mother and sisters, 
left the care to the clergyman. A tear moistened his 
single eye and fell on the rigid hand, half hidden in the 
magnificent lace ruffle. At this he felt a light touch on 
his shoulder; the hand was Emma’s. 

She was a little jealous of her pet; it was in her arms, 
not the mother’s, that he had passed away. She came 
to array him in the dead clothes, so that a seaman’s 
rough hand should not have that office. The sea-lion 
kissed her hand. Before death, the vastest and most 
ardent love has modesty. 

The king was on deck when he got back. 

Full of the mournful sight, Nelson thought he would 
have to console the sorrowing father. But the king 
felt better and was hungry. He was glad to see the ad- 
miral that he might tell the cook that he wanted the plate 
of macaroni without which no meal was perfect in his 
eyes. He pointed out the various islands where he had 
gone shooting, and said: 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


205 

“I only hope that I shall find as fine game in my Sicil- 
ian preserves as on the main !” 

So this potentate, whose territory the French were 
despoiling him of, this father whose son had been reft 
away — he only prayed for the twofold comfort that he 
should find forests stocked with game! 

But other matters fretted Nelson in his own province. 
What had become of Caracciolo? and how should he get 
into Palermo? He was familiar with the Atlantic, but 
not with this present sea. There were two Sicilian 
sailors aboard, one, the sound steersman. But how 
could the first navigator of the day trust to a simple 
sailor to conduct a seventy-four-gun ship-of-war, and to 
a foreign seaman to traverse Palermo Passage? 

If they got up in the daytime, they might call a pilot 
to come ofif by signaling. In the night they would have 
to stand off-and-on till day came. 

To annoy him the more, the king, in his ignorance of 
nautical difficulties, was sure to ask him : 

“If that is Palermo over there, why do we not sail 
right in ?” 

And Nelson would never bow to replying: “Because 
I do not know my way in !” 

Besides, in a country where human life was the cheap- 
est of commodities, would there be such a thing as a 
board of pilots, or even one? 

They would soon know, for at nightfall, or 5 P. M., 
they were off the capital. 

The king had gone down at two, when he found the 
macaroni cooked to a turn and dined perfectly. His chil- 
dren dined with him, but their mother kept her room as a 
mourner. 

At half after three, the king came up with his son, 
Leopold, and his dog, who had come the voyage well. 
They joined Nelson on the quarter-deck, where he was 


20 6 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


wistfully but vainly searching the sea, without anywhere 
descrying the Minerva. 

It would have been a feather in his hat to have dis- 
tanced the Neapolitan admiral, but the chances were that 
the native had got in ahead. 

They doubled the cape at four. The wind blew for- 
cibly out of the southwest. They could not enter the 
port without tacking, and in this twisting they would 
easily strike a rock or stick on a shoal. 

At sight of the port, signals were sent up and down 
for a pilot to come off. 

By the aid of his telescope, Nelson was enabled to 
survey all the shipping in the haven, and he distin- 
guished nearest them all, and like a picket set in advance 
of the regiment, the Minerva, with all her standing rig- 
ging intact and fitly riding at her anchors. He bit his 
lip with spite, for he had hoped that she would not have 
out stripped him. 

Night fell swiftly. He showed the signals anew, and 
fired a gun, after having notified his guests what the 
noise was for. 

The darkness was so thick that soon they could only 
make out the town by the lights in the houses. A sec- 
ond shot was about to be fired when the officer of the 
watch reported that a boat was coming out. With the 
glass Nelson could also spy a local boat, under a three- 
cornered sail and manned by four men, bringing off a 
sailor, wearing the thick hooded jacket of the Sicilian 
seafarers. 

“Boat ahoy! what are you wanting?” challenged the 
watch in the bow. 

“Pilot!” was the short answer. 

“Toss the man a line, and take his boat in tow !” com- 
manded the admiral. 

As the shallop came nearer, it fiirjed its sail. The four 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


207 


men dropped their oars and took to rowing. They ran 
alongside the Vanguard, where a rope was cast out to the 
pilot. Grasping it with the mariner’s tenacity, he walked 
up, while also climbing the rope itself, along the side, 
like an experienced fellow; entered at one of the deck 
portholes and presently stood on the deck. He walked 
straight to the post where the admiral, his captain, and 
the king, with his boy, were waiting. 

“You did not hurry yourself,” gruffly remarked the 
officer of the deck. 

“I came off at the gun-fire.” 

“Did you not see the signals?” 

The pilot was not inclined to argue; he said nothing. 

“Do not lose precious time,” interrupted Nelson. 
“Ask him in his tongue if he is used to the port, and can 
take in a vessel of our burden?” 

“I can talk your lordship’s tongue,” replied the 
stranger, in excellent English. “I know the port and 
I answer for all.” 

“That’s good! Take the sailing into your hands, as 
you are the master here. Only don’t forget that you 
are sailing a ship which bears your sovereigns.” 

“I know that I have that honor, my lord.” 

Without taking the speaking-trumpet offered him by 
Hardy, he gave his commands in a ringing voice which 
sounded all over the deck. 

Like a steed which acknowledges a skillful rider and 
comprehends that all tricks and opposition to his will are 
useless, the Vanguard yielded to the newcomer, and 
even showed a willingness not unnoticed by the king. 

The latter went over to the pilot, as Nelson and his 
officer stood aloof, moved by the same national pride and 
ship etiquette, to let the pilot rule. 

“Do you think I can get ashore this night, my friend?” 
inquired Ferdinando. 


208 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


“Nothing will prevent that, since we shall be at the 
moorings in an hour.” 

“Which is the best hotel at Palermo?” 

The pilot laughed. “I don’t suppose the king will 
stop at any hotel whatever, when he has the old King 
Roger’s palace.” 

“Where I am not expected — where I should not get a 
bite to eat, and where the stewards, not suspecting my 
arrival, will have stolen even the bed sheets !” 

“Quite otherwise, your majesty will find things in 
order. For I know that, this morning, at eight o’clock, 
on getting in port, Admiral Caracciolo saw to every- 
thing for your comfort.” 

“How would you know this?” 

“I am the admiral’s own pilot, and I can answer for 
it that, being anchored at eight o’clock, he was at the old 
palace by nine.” 

“So I shall have nothing to worry about but a car- 
riage of some kind ?” 

“As the admiral foresaw that your majesty would ar- 
rive this evening, he has had three coaches waiting since 
five o’clock before the Marine Buildings.” 

“Upon my soul ! this Admiral Caracciolo is mightily 
useful, and when I go traveling again I will choose him 
for my quartermaster!” 

“It will be a great honor for the prince, less for the 
rank offered him than for the confidence it proves.” 

“Was the admiral buffeted by the storm?” 

“Not a buffet!” 

“It is clear that I should have done better if I had 
sailed with my own admiral,” muttered the king, pull- 
ing at his own ear. 

The pilot winced, and the other asked why he started. 

“Nothing; but, I guess, the admiral would be pleased 
if he heard that much from your majesty’s mouth.” 


The Sea Sends Storms. 209 

“Oh, I am not talking up my sleeve.” He turned 
to Nelson and said : “Do you know, my lord, that our 
admiral arrived at eight this morning without any hard 
blows ? He must be a wizard of the waves, since we 
could not pull through without losing our t-t-topmasts 
and sundry other oddly-named things. You may trans- 
late that literally to your chief,” he added to Hardy. 

“Sire,” Nelson replied, “your majesty was free to 
choose between the Vanguard and the Minerva; the Van- 
guard being chosen, all that wood, iron and canvas can 
do was done for your service by the Vanguard .” 

“All the same,” continued the sovereign, who had 
the burning of his fleet on his heart, and the pressure 
of England through this intermediary, “if I had taken 
passage by the Minerva, I should have landed this morn- 
ing and passed a fine day on firm land. But that is a 
fly bite. I am not the less grateful to your lordship, who 
did his best ! To do what you can is to do your duty !” 
he finished, with feigned good humor. 

Nelson stamped his foot and left his captain in charge 
while he went into his cabin. 

At this juncture the pilot called out: 

“Stand by to let down the anchor.” 

Setting sail, and the anchorage of a warship are the 
solemn moments on shipboard. So, when all interested 
had gone to their stations, the deepest silence reigned 
aboard. To passengers, this is prodigious; a thousand 
men, officers included, mute and attentive, awaiting a 
word. 

The officer on duty repeats the pilot’s directions and 
the boatswain repeats his by sound of his “call.” 

The men manning the ropes began to haul together, 
and as the yards swung into place, and the slack of the 
chain cable came out, the quivering Vanguard, of her 
own volition, forged through the maze of shipping, and, 


210 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


spite of the scanty room for her course, proudly arrived 
at her place of mooring. 

Meanwhile, the sails were hauled up partially, to hang 
in festoons. Those left spread stood so to be laid about 
and check the too great impetus of the ship. “Let go 
the anchor!” cried the pilot. Trumpet and whistle re- 
peated the same. Off from the sides leaped one huge 
hook, falling with deafening splash into the tide. The 
massive chain followed, serpentining and throwing up 
spouts of spray. 

The vessel groaned and strained, shaken to her depths. 
There was cracking throughout her joints; then, in the 
midst of the water bubbling and boiling, there came a 
shock; the anchor had taken hold. 

The pilot’s task was done; he had nothing more to 
do. So he went respectfully over to the officer next the 
chief and bowed to him. Hardy had twenty guineas 
ready for him, from the admiral, which he tendered. 
But the smiling guide shook his head, and said, as he re- 
pulsed the gold : 

“I am paid by my own government; besides, I do not 
take any gold unless it bears the stamp of my own rulers 
— Ferdinando or Carlo.” 

The king had not let his eyes wander from him, and, 
as he was passing him with a bow, he caught him by 
the hand. 

“Could you not do me a little service, friend?” he 
asked. 

“Any order the king gives must be done, if in a man’s 
power.” 

“Could you take me ashore?” 

“Nothing is easier. But is that mean fisher’s bark 
worthy to carry a monarch?” 

“Take me, all the same!” 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


21 1 

The pilot bowed, but returning to Hardy, he said: 

“Captain, here’s the king wanting to be landed. Do 
you mind letting down the side ladder of state?” 

Hardy was amazed at the royal whim. 

As the king looked at him captiously, he observed that 
he would have to defer to the admiral, as no one could 
leave a British warship without the commander’s per- 
mission. 

“Not even me? Am I a prisoner on the Vanguard ?” 
queried the indignant sovereign. 

“The king is never a prisoner; but the more noted the 
guest is, the more disgraced the host would feel at his 
departing without saying farewell.” 

Clever Hardy bowed and went below. 

“Confounded English l It would not take much to 
make me a Jacobin just to get out of your clutches!” 
muttered the king. 

The caprice astonished the superior as much as his 
officer. So he came hastily upon deck. 

“Is it true that the king wishes to take French leave of 
the Vanguard ?” he demanded, counter to the rule that a 
question should never be put straight to a royal per- 
son. 

“Nothing truer. My dear lord, I am finely treated on 
board, but I shall have better treatment on dry land. It 
is plain that I was not born to be a sailor !” 

“Lower away the long boat!” began Nelson, but the 
fugitive interposed. 

“It is useless! Don’t call up any of your brave fel- 
lows who must be tired out !” 

“But I cannot credit what my captain said! that your 
majesty would go ashore in a fish-boat?” 

“It is quite true. The fisher-pilot seems a skillful sea- 


212 The Sea Sends Storms. 

man and a faithful subject. I conclude that I can trust 
in him.” 

“But I cannot allow another boat than ours, or other 
men than his majesty’s, to transport you ashore.” 

“That’s what I said to your captain : I am a prisoner 
here !” retorted the monarch. 

“Rather than leave your majesty one moment under 
that impression I will bow to his wish.” 

“That’s nice ! In this way we shall part good friends.” 

“But the queen ?” 

“Oh, she is fatigued. She is ailing. It would be too 
much bother to set her ashore in a skiff with the family. 
Put them all ashore to-morrow. I recommend them to 
your lordship’s care, with all the court !” 

“Do not I go with you, papa ?” inquired little Leopold. 

“No, no! what would mamma say if I took you, the 
apple of her eye?” 

Nelson had ordered out the steps of honor used for 
magnates, ladies and soldiers. 

But the pilot slid down a rope and swung himself into 
the boat. 

“My Lord Nelson,” said the passenger, “as I quit your 
ship, let me tell you that I shall never forget your atten- 
tions with which we were overwhelmed aboard, and, to- 
morrow, the men of the Vanguard shall receive proof of 
my satisfaction.” 

The admiral bowed, but he said not a word. The 
self-dismissed guest scrambled down the steps and sat 
down in the fisher’s boat with a sigh of relief which the 
admiral heard in the opening in the bulwark where he 
stood, bowing. 

“Push off !” said the pilot to the fisher, holding on by 
the gaff. The boat left the ship’s side and went away. 

“Oars out, lads, and pull lustily!” continued the pilot. 


The Sea Sends Storms. 


213 

The four oars dipped and were plied with a concord 
not often met with in fishers, but much like man-of-war’s 
men, and this vigorous impulsion sent the light craft over 
to the Marine Building, where the royal carriages were 
waiting. 

The pilot was the first to jump out, with the painter 
in his hand, which he tied to a spile and bound the boat 
to the jetty. But before he could offer his hand, Ferdi- 
nando gathered himself up, and, neatly for a bulky man, 
sprang upon the firm pier. 

“Hurrah!” said he, joyously. “I am on my own 
ground again ! Old Harry take King George now ! and 
the English admiralty, Lord Nelson, the Vanguard, and 
the whole fleet of his Britannic majesty ! My friend, this 
is for yourself !” 

“Thank you, majesty.” The pilot rejected the purse 
just as he had the English offering; “but your majesty 
may have heard what I was bound to reply to the British 
captain : my government pays me.” 

“But you said that you would not take coin without 
the head of Carlo or Ferdinando upon it?” 

“Sire, are you sure that this handed out to me does 
not bear the mint-mark of George?” 

“You are a saucy dog to give a lesson to your tyrant! 
In any case, learn that if I borrow money of Old Dame 
Albion, she makes me pay high interest. The money is 
for your men, and this watch for you, you stickler! If 
ever I become king again, and you want any favor, come 
to me, and show me that watch, and you will see, I shall 
‘keep good time’ with you !” 

The pilot tossed the purse to his rowers, but pocketed 
the watch. 

“To-morrow,” he said, “I shall come to the palace, and 


214 The Sea Sends Storms. 

I hope your majesty will verify his promise about the 
favor.” 

“I must say you strike while the iron is hot !” laughed 
the king, ready to laugh at anything now. He stepped 
into the first of the royal carriages, and called out : “To 
the royal palace, and plaguey quick!” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE PILOT'S REWARD. 

Admiral Caracciolo, having notified the governor of 
Palermo that the king was coming, that functionary 
passed the notice on to the other officials. 

Of course, a deputation was waiting to make speeches 
to the king, who, on his part, needed both nourishment 
and sleep, and the prospect of official addresses set him 
shuddering from his crown to his soles. So he cut the 
ceremony short by “taking it as read,” and promised 
largesse to the poor, which would be bestowed on the 
morrow. As for the bishop, who was amid all his clergy, 
he mentioned a vow to build a church as a thank-offering 
for his miraculous escape from shipwreck, and wished 
a Te Deum sung for the same at the cathedral. 

“Reduced though our purse is, we will try to recom- 
pense the church for our safety.” 

It was the turn of the magistracy — but he did not let 
their welcome take up his time. Recognizing the chief 
judge as a crony, he said : 

“So we have you again, Master Cardillo? Are you 
still an inveterate card player and furious sportsman? 
Then I invite you to my card parties on condition you 
ask me out to your shooting!” 

This was a regular dismissal, and he left to retire by 
the grand stairs. Four footmen held the lights for him, 
and he was followed by Jupiter, the only guest he had an 
inclination for. A dinner for thirty had been served. 
But the king sat at the head of the table and made them 
place the retriever on a chair at the other end, where lie 


21 6 


The Pilot’s Reward. 


was given all the dishes he tasted, to finish them. Never 
had Jupiter found himself at such a banquet. After 
the supper. Ferdinando took the pet with him into his 
sleeping-room, ordered the softest rugs to be laid at the 
foot of the bed for him, and as he patted his intelligent 
head before laying down his own head, he said : 

“I hope that you will never have to say, according to 
some poet or another, that you found the stranger’s stairs 
hard to climb and the exile’s bread bitter !” 

On which he nodded off to slumber, dreaming that he 
had made a miraculous draft of fishes in Castellamare 
Gulf and a tremendous battle in Ficuzza Woods. 

In Naples, the king was awakened at eight, but there 
was no such rule here, and he slept on till ten. In the 
meanwhile, the queen, the family and their train were 
landed and lodged in the palace and about the town. The 
prince’s remains were placed in King Roger’s chapel for 
the time. The royal order was for them to lie in state 
for one day before interment. The official note went 
forth about the mourning, and so — Amen ! 

It was announced to the king that Admiral Caracciolo 
begged the honor to be received. It will be remembered 
that, if that pilot’s story was to be believed, he had ad- 
vertised the royal arrival and played his master-of-cere- 
monies capitally. 

All the antipathy which Nelson was inspiring welded 
the exile to his own admiral. So he eagerly ordered his 
being ushered into the library next his sitting-room, where 
he himself came in such continued eagerness that he had 
not finished dressing. 

“My dear admiral, I am downright glad to see you — 
in the first place for having thought of my welfare as soon 
as you yourself were blown into port !” 

The other bowed, and said, without the greeting un- 
clouding his face : 


The Pilot’s Reward. 


217 


“Sire, that was my duty as a good and faithful subject.” 

“I want to offer you my compliments to boot for the 
gallant style in which you carried your ship through the 
storm ! You came near to making Old Nelson burst with 
spite! I should have split with laughter over it if I had 
not been so thoroughly scared !” 

“Admiral Nelson could only do his best,” returned the 
Italian. “He could not Handle an old-fashioned hull, bat- 
tered and shattered like the Vanguard , as I could the new 
model and lighter craft, my frigate, which, moreover, has 
never been under fire.” 

“That is what I told him, not in those very words, but 
to the same effect, saving that I put it in another sense! 
I furthermore observed that I felt deep regret at having 
broken my word to voyage under your charge and gone 
with him instead of with you.” 

“I know that, and I was profoundly touched.” 

“You know? how — did he tell you? Eh! I under- 
stand : you were the pilot ?” 

Caracciolo did not reply to this, but he said presently : 

“Sire, I came to beg a boon.” 

“You hit on a happy day ! Speak !” 

“I beg the king to accept kindly my resignation of ad- 
miralship of the Neapolitan navy.” 

The king fell back a step, so far was he from expect- 
ing this request. 

“Sire, it is useless to have an admiral when there is 
no longer a fleet.” 

“You need not harp on that,” exclaimed the exile, with 
plain anger; “my Lord Nelson had it burned. But, some 
day, we will be masters at home again, and we’ll rebuild 
all that.” 

“But still, as I have lost the royal trust,” went on the 
Neapolitan, coolly, “I deserve no more to command it.” 

“When did you lose my trust, Caracciolo?” 


2 1 8 


The Pilot’s Reward. 


“I prefer to let it stand at that than reproach a ruler 
in whose veins flows the oldest regal blood in Europe, 
with having broken his word.” 

“That’s right — I did promise you ” 

“Not to leave Naples, or, if so, upon my deck !” 

“Come, come, dear fellow ! none of that.” He held out 
his hand warmly. 

But the admiral had a paper ready and put it in the 
proffered hand. <* It was the resignation. 

“The king has no right to refuse it,” added he. 

“Oh, have I no rights now? Not to refuse your resig- 
nation !” 

“No! for you granted me yesterday the first boon I 
should ask, and that is to accept my resignation.” 

“Yesterday, I — am I going mad or you?” 

“I have all my wits. But you may not have recognized 
me. You will remember this watch, though?” 

“The pilot !” exclaimed Ferdinando, looking at the time- 
piece, which bore his portrait set with brilliants. “How 
could you, an admiral, stoop to playing the pilot ?” 

“Sire, there is no inferior station when one is saving 
a king!” 

The royal countenance took the sad expression not sel- 
dom on it. 

“I am truly an unfortunate prince,” he mourned, “for 
my friends leave me, or are driven away.” 

“Sire, you are wrong to accuse Heaven of what you 
do or allow to be done. You are a man with will and 
power — a king. With your free will, you can choose be- 
tween ill and good. It is by your choosing the bad that 
the good shun you.” 

More grieved than irritated, the king rejoined: 

“Caracciolo, let me tell you that nobody has ever spoken 
to me as you do.” 

“Because, apart from a man who loves you and wishes 


The Pilot’s Reward. 219 

the welfare of the realm, your majesty has none around 
him but courtiers who love themselves and seek but the 
dainties of fortune.” 

“What other such is there but you?” 

“One your majesty forgot and left in Naples, but 
whom I have brought over to Sicily — Cardinal Ruffo.” 

“The cardinal well knows that I am always prone to 
listen to him.” 

“Ay, but after hearing his advice, you heed the queen’s 
and Nelson’s, and Acton’s. I am in desolation at having 
to lack respect, but I must say that those three names 
will be accursed now and for all time !” 

“Do you not think that I curse them, too?” responded 
the listener ; “do you imagine that I do not see that they 
are pushing the country into ruin, and me to my perdition ? 
I am not clever, but I am not a mole !” 

“Well, then contend with them !” 

“It is easy to say, contend — but I am not a man of 
contention ! I was not born for a fighting life. I am one 
for sensations and pleasures ; with a good heart which has 
been soured by keeping it in a ferment. There they are, 
three or four of them, all wrangling over my crown, 
scepter and throne. I let them play with them, hoping 
that they will brain one another with the rod, or choke 
with the crown around their neck. I never asked my 
fairy godmother for a reign. I like horses, hunting, and 
a jolly meal. With ten thousand a year and freedom in 
my guise, I should be the happiest man in creation. But, 
maintaining that I am the king, they do not leave me an 
instant’s peace. They make wars without my wish and 
I get the blows. They blunder and I, officially, have to 
repair these blunders. You ask for your resignation — 
you are right. But you ought to apply to the others, for 
it is really they whom you serve, and not me.” 

“That is why, wishing to serve you and not that crew, 


220 The Pilot’s Reward. 

I wish to retire into private life, such as your majesty 
pictures/’ 

“If I sign, what will you do?” 

“Go back to Naples, to serve my country. Naples is 
now in the stress when she needs all her sons’ courage 
and intelligence.” 

“Take care what you do in Naples, prince !” 

“I shall try as ever to conduct myself as an honorable 
man and a good citizen.” 

He pointed to the watch lying on the table. 

“Iron head !” thought the monarch, and impatiently he 
took up the pen and wrote at the foot of the resignation : 

“Granted; but the Prince of Caracciolo must not for- 
get that Naples is in the enemy’s hands.” He signed 
the usual : “Ferdinando, B.” 

The ex-admiral looked at the paper and supplement, 
and, folding it up, saluted the sovereign. 

“You are forgetting your watch,” remarked the latter. 

“That was not given to the admiral, but the pilot. The 
pilot does not exist, and the admiral is no more.” 

“Still, let me hope that the friend will survive,” spoke 
the Bourbon, with the dignity which flashed from him 
once in a while. “Take the watch, and if ever you feel 
inclined to go against your king, look on his likeness 
there.” 

“Sire, I am no longer in the royal service. I am a 
plain citizen. I must do what my country orders.” 

He left the king not merely sad, but pondering. 



“ Lord Nelson, ever the parson’s son, never played ; but he stood 
behind her.” (See page 221) 














V 











CHAPTER XXVII. 


RUFFO “RUFFS” THE CARDS. 

As soon as he had settled down at Palermo, the king 
organized a cabinet and then arranged about his card- 
parties and hunting excursions. 

The royal party was not the only one in the grand sa- 
loon. A few paces from the king’s table for Reversino, 
a game in which the lowest by tricks wins, was the faro 
table at which Lady Hamilton presided. Whether she 
stood as banker or punter, she held the place of worship. 
It was a spectacle to watch the play of passions on the 
fair English visage. Extreme in everything, Emma 
staked frantically, and delighted in plunging her hands 
in the gold weighing down her lap, and making it jingle 
as she let it pour in cascades between her fingers on 
the board. 

Lord Nelson, ever the parson’s son, never played; but 
he stood behind her, leaning on her chair back, or sat 
there, devouring her with his single eye, speaking only 
to her, and in English, in an undertone. 

While the king restricted his stakes to a thousand du- 
cats at most, at Emma’s table one stood to win or lose 
upwards of fifty thousand. It was at this altar of beauty 
and chance that the richest lords of Sicily clustered. If 
Emma noticed one of these wearing a very fine jewel, she 
would point it out to Nelson ; and the next day, at what- 
ever the price, it was obtained, a ruby, pearl or diamond, 
and was next seen on Emma’s neck, arm or finger. 

The queen did not gamble. Strange to say, it was 
an unknown passion to this slave of passions. 


222 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 

A foreigner entering this drawing-room and seeing 
the pastime, without knowing who were the participants, 
would never have guessed correctly. 

A king, a queen and royal family in that rosy stout 
host, gayly holding his aces when he ought to have 
thrown them away, the lady embroidering a pair of slip- 
pers, and the smiling young man friendly with all the 
company ! Yet they had lost a kingdom and were tanta- 
mount to being in exile ! 

Meanwhile, as the scattered hounds finally find the ken- 
nel after having been dispersed by a stag, the court 
sycophants arrived in Sicily from Naples. They brought 
the news as it occurred. 

A riot against Mack, who had sought shelter in the 
French camp; a general of the people nominated in 
Maliterno ; and, above all, the uninterrupted march of the 
French upon the capital. Then, the governor of St. 
Elmo Castle appeared. If his story was true, he had 
been surprised in his stronghold, and thrust into the 
dungeon of Nicolini Caracciolo, who was set up as com- 
mander of the citadel in his place! The story of his 
sufferings drew from the queen an order on the treasury 
and the appointment as governor of Palermo. A victim 
of the Caracciolo and the Jacobins deserved no less. 

A council was held with Nelson. It was necessary, 
not merely to prevent the Revolution from triumphing at 
Naples, but from crossing the Strait and invading Sicily. 

The council decided on nothing. The queen knew 
the political machine to its least crank, but she had no 
great ideas. The king only reiterated that he had washed 
his hands of the whole mess. 

“Those who marred must do the mending!” he de- 
clared. 

Acton, crushed by events and weighed down by the 
knowledge that the king had proof of the forged im- 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 223 

perial letter, saw his unpopularity grow, and he offered 
to transfer his post to whoever would suggest the plan 
of relief and regeneration. 

The only man for good counsel was Cardinal Ruffo. 
But the cardinal had no card but one. “Transport the 
counter-revolution into Calabria and set at its head the 
Duke of Calabria.” 

The first clause of this project pleased the king, but 
the second appeared absolutely impracticable. 

The Duke of Calabria was a splinter off the same 
rock, or a slice of the same putty of which his father 
was composed. He would not altar his namby-pamby 
existence for any political speculation. He had never 
cared to go to Calabria because he was afraid of catch- 
ing its current fevers. So it was not likely that he could 
be persuaded by his father to go and feel the fever of a 
chief guerilla being shot at. 

Thus it stood ; the French were masters in Naples, the 
Parthenopean Republic was proclaimed, and the pro- 
visionary government was sending out deputies to se- 
cure the provinces. 

The council adjourned to await better news, and lo! 
there came news which no one expected : 

“The prince royal has made a landing in Calabria. He 
has declared himself at Brindisi and Tarento, and has 
roused in arms all the southern point of the peninsula!” 

At the tidings, the counselors stared with astonish- 
ment, and the king burst out laughing. 

The session was adjourned to discover the meaning 
of this hoax, worthy of carnival time, and the king went 
to his rooms with the intention of summoning Cardinal 
Ruffo, who would know, if any one did, who ventured 
on such alarming jokes. 

The prelate was there, having exercised his standing 


224 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 


privilege to be -ushered in at all hours without being 
made to dance attendance. 

The eminent churchman wore a smile. 

“Do you know the news?” queried the king, still 
laughing. 

“That the hereditary prince landed at Brindisi and set 
all Southern Calabria in a blaze? Yes, majesty.” 

“Yes ; but the pity is that there is not one word of truth 
in the tale. The hereditary prince of Calabria is no more 
in his born-land than I am, and I shall take great care 
not to go there.” 

“He has been closeted with his librarian in the library, 
commenting on the ‘Erotico Biblion/ a work by Mira- 
beau, written in his imprisonment.” 

“Is it fairy tales? If so, he has found in it the art of 
being, like a bird, as the Irish doctor on the Vanguard 
humorously said, in two places at once.” 

“But he is; he is ubiquitous. Well, the key to the 
riddle is that when I need a prince royal for a project of 
mine and I cannot procure the real article, I make a 
substitute.” 

“This is news, indeed!” spoke the hearer. “You 
might tell me how princes are manufactured, as it is 
rather an opposition to kings and their trade.” 

“An auxiliary, my liege, not an opposition. But I will 
reveal the process if you will seat yourself comfortably, 
as those English say, in that reclining-chair.” 

The monarch disposed himself at ease and “the manu- 
facturer of princes” began his recital. 

“Does your majesty remember the visit paid you by 
the royal ladies, Victoire and Adelaide, daughters of his 
majesty, Louis XV. of France?” 

“I have reason to remember the poor old dames, for 
when I quitted Naples I felt constrained to send them 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 


225 

traveling-money, and suggested that they had better 
get away into Austria or join me by and by at this town.” 

“Does your majesty also remember that they had half 
a dozen gentlemen guardsmen with them, one of whom, 
Cesare Boccheciampi, a Corsican, bore a striking like- 
ness to the prince royal ?” 

“It struck me as important or dangerous, for, the 
first time, I took him for his betters !” 

“That’s it. It came to my mind in my cogitations to 
use this phenomenon.” 

The king eyed the narrator like one who does not see 
the drift of a story, but has such confidence in him that 
he already admires him. 

“I suspected that the Duke of Calabria would never 
consent to play an active part in the counter revolu- 
tionary campaign, so I thought to profit by Cesare’s 
strong likeness. So I imparted my idea to him and I 
will do him the justice to say that he did not flinch. 
He ofifered himself and his brother officers for the king’s 
service. I did not give him any plan, but held this 
language with him : 

“ Tf nothing happens to you along the road to Brin- 
disi, go over to Sicily by boat. But — if something ex- 
traordinary and unexpected does arrive, you have wit 
and bravery; your fortune and your comrades’ — a for- 
tune you could not without my hint attain, but above 
your highest dreams of ambition — is in your hands!” 

“With such faith in their courage, why not confide the 
plan?” 

“Because amid seven young adventurers one might be 
a traitor.” 

The king sighed assent; he would give a wider 
measure. 

“I suppose you have reason to hide the plan from 
me?” he said. 


226 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 


‘The less because it has succeeded. I wrote to an 
agent of mine at Montejasi, named Gironda — who could 
not disclose my plan, as he was ignorant — that H. R. H. 
the Duke of Calabria, despairing of those dull church- 
men, shifting politicians and, above all, his father too 
tender about him, were holding him in peace, but he 
meant to make a desperate effort to gain his father’s 
kingdom ! He had sailed for the mainland with the 
Duke de Saxe, his lord high constable, and his first 
equerry. I besought my man to watch over his safety 
if he believed the attempt would miss fire, but to help him 
in all ways if it looked promising. What I foresaw hap- 
pened. 

“Seven aristocratic young strangers in a town inn! 
The mayor was notified. It appeared to him that he had 
before his eyes — for they dined on the balcony of the 
inn — the Prince of Calabria, and his officers and their 
retainers. On the other hand, the rumor was also cir- 
culated that the seven were spies and precursors of the 
republicans. A mob of some hundreds besieged the inn, 
when, at the first sight of the supposed hereditary prince, 
the mayor hailed him as : 

“ ‘Our own prince ! Long live the Duke of Cala- 
bria !’ 

“Master Cesare started; the incredible and unexpected 
occurrence I premised had come to pass — or, rather, 
would pass if he did not seize it by the forelock. So 
he took a step forward and simply gave the mayor and 
town councilmen his hand to kiss ! 

“On that, several natives, who had been to Naples and 
did not want to be a day after the fair, recognized 
the prince. The mob carried the mock prince on their 
shoulders to the cathedral, where the joy-bells were 
ringing, and the Te Deum was immediately entoned. 
Cesare was no more to be daunted by the church than 


Ruffe “Ruffs” the Cards. 


227 


by the authority. At the close, he bowed to the bishop 
as a good son, and embraced him as a good son might a 
father spiritual !” 

“Saints be praised ! your Cesare is a prince of im- 
postors !” ejaculated the king, between laughing and cry- 
ing. 

“This so frightened his comrades that they left by the 
first boat for Corfu, but he had the young sparks rally 
around him who were dying of ennui, and at last ac- 
counts they all had raised the Land of Bari and were 
likely, if they met the foe, to die of bullets !” 

“What delicious news, by which we must profit.” 

“That is what I am here for, sire !” 

“I am a philosopher, but I should not be sorry to see 
the French chased out and a few Jacobins hung on the 
public squares.” 

“In order to bring that about, let me finish what I 
have well commenced.” 

“You? alone?” 

“Precisely; without the concurrence of Mack, Nelson 
or any of them !” 

“You will reconquer Naples alone?” 

“With Cesare as my lieutenant and our stout Cala- 
brians as the nucleus. Appoint me your vicar-general 
— your alter ego f — and I will go over to the mainland 
with my chaplain and my secretary, where I will laugh 
at your council of state. I will lead an army for the 
Holy Faith, and, making a junction with Cesare, I will 
in three months be under the walls of Rome.” 

The king seized a pen with the alacrity of taking a 
gun from the loader to fire into a covey, and rapidly 
signed the orders Ruffo had ready. Not only was it his 
appointment, but a treasury order to fill the military 
chest — more English gold ! 

He would have prevailed as well without the money 


228 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 


in the old quarter where he went to stir up the slug- 
gish baronets and direct their stings. 

In entering Lower Calabria, the fomentor of counter 
revolution set his foot in ancient Brutium. It was the 
sanctuary for escaped Roman slaves. It had let ages pass 
over its stagnancy with the utmost ignorance. The 
same men who were shouting one way overnight, with- 
out knowing what they said, shouted the reverse next 
day with the same dullness. 

But though they were brutish peasants, there joined 
them galley slaves, the jailbirds of whom the keepers 
were delighted to be rid, and vagrants; but the leaders 
were enthusiastic priests and royalists* 

The army of “the Sanfedists” swelled with the rapidity 
of the rabble of the First Crusade. It had to be recog- 
nized like a tidal wave. The queen, overjoyed at this 
army surpassing in numbers and violence and merciless- 
ness the forces of the Miller Mammone and the bandit. 
Fra Diavolo, sent the cardinal-general, though she still 
did not love him, a banner of her own working. It was 
magnificent, though he might more prize the flattering 
letter which accompanied it. On the white satin was let- 
tered : “To my dear Calabrians !” and on the other side 
was a cross and the antique Latin for “In this sign I 
conquer !” 

While this was accomplished in Bari Land, Naples 
was witness to events not less weighty. 

The Emperor of Austria had at last moved. This 
move was fatal to the French army. The emperor, in 
waiting for the Russians, had acted wisely. Flushed 
with his victory over the Turks, Suwarrow had crossed 
Germany and taken Brescia as his token of acceptance 
of the united command of the Austro-Russian army. 

General Macdonald, succeeding Championnet, had “re- 


Ruffo “Ruffs” the Cards. 229 

tired” many of his advanced posts, and Ruffo pushed in 
at each weakening of the invasion. 

The Holy Faith army was at last under the capital's 
walls. Only the St. Elmo Castle was held by French sol- 
diers and other strongholds by the native revolutionists. 
The port was blockaded by Nelson’s ships. 

But there was tidings of a French fleet being out in 
the Mediterranean, trying to unite with the Spanish and 
destroy the enemy piecemeal. 

Naples had seen its navy annihilated by Nelson’s or- 
ders and could not hope to replace it. But some gun- 
boats formed a flotilla to assist the forts in resisting 
the possible attack of the English fleet if it cooperated 
with Ruffo’s army in a storming of the city. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


TRAITOR OR PATRIOT? 

Admiral Francesco Caracciolo had truly wished to 
dwell in obscurity. But that was impossible to a than 
of his stamp at such times. 

Naples looked to him as the only naval officer of in- 
contestible merit. 

As soon as there was a republican government, he 
was singled out to be not only the Minister of the Navy 
but the admiral over the petty fleet which might be put 
to sea. 

Caracciolo hesitated briefly between the country’s sal- 
vation and the peril he personally faced. His own feel- 
ings, princely birth and the society he had frequented, 
all drew him rather toward royalistic opinions than 
democratic ones. Nevertheless, he had been sharply 
wounded by the preference of the royal family for 
Nelson to convey them over to Sicily. That the Duke 
of Calabria should be “consigned” to him, like the bag- 
gage, was rather an accident than a favor, and revenge 
urged him to make his sovereigns repent of the scorn 
with which they treated him. 

As soon as he was determined to serve the Republic, 
he applied himself to the task not only like a man of 
reliability but one of genius. With marvelous swift- 
ness and to the best, he equipped a dozen gunboats as 
well as some which were built on the spur, and with 
three small vessels saved from the conflagration, he had 
a fleet of thirty sail. 

He was waiting at this stage to have a chance of doing 


Traitor or Patriot? 231 

something more than what the sailors style “a brush,” 
when, one morning, he descried that, instead of the ten 
or fifteen English vessels off the harbor, only three or 
four hovered; the others had sailed away in the night. 
He did not know it then, but they had gone in pre- 
vision of the maneuver of the French fleet now on the 
sea. 

Indeed, Cardinal Ruffo, as much puzzled as the ad- 
miral and the French in the castles, learned, by a letter 
from the queen, that ten of the ships had appeared off 
Palermo. She had heard that the French, dismayed 
by the overthrow of their forces by the Austro-Russians, 
were to evacuate Naples. She could not credit this, but 
she believed that the worst of the royalists’ danger was 
over. She signed herself the cardinal's “true friend.” 

One morning in May, Naples shuddered at the can- 
nonade. 

Three vessels remained off the harbor, blockading. 
One of the number was the Minerva, which had been 
the Neapolitan’s flagship. The German, Count Thurn, 
now commanded it. 

The news circulated that the French fleet was out of 
port cruising with a view of eventually bringing back 
General Bonaparte from Egypt with his army. A local 
newspaper, however, had asserted that it was coming 
to relieve Naples. 

Caracciolo had frankly taken up the republican cause, 
and, like all fair-dealing men, did not do things halfway. 
He resolved to profit by the departure of the greater 
number of the blockaders to try to retake the islets 
around Naples which the royalists had occupied, and on 
which were planted gibbets for the revolutionists. 

Leaving harbor on a calm sea, and protected by the 
fort batteries, Caracciolo attacked the English trio with 
his left wing, while in person he assailed Thurn in his 


2}2 Traitor or Patriot? 

former ship. This latter was a plain attack on the royal 
standard. 

Unfortunately, the wind sprang up from the south, 
contrary to the gunboats and other small craft of the 
Republic. Twice Caracciolo tried to board the Minerva , 
but it was steered handsomely to baffle him. 

His left wing, on the wind strengthening, was driven 
back to town. • 

This action, passing under the eyes of the citizens, on 
their housetops and other elevations, did the adventurer 
much honor and was a triumph to his men. While seri- 
ously injuring the enemy, his loss was only five killed, a 
miracle after five hours’ firing. 

As it was indispensable to make it appear it was a 
battle with the English, this skirmish was magnified so 
that when the story reached Palermo, it augmented 
Carolina’s grudge against Caracciolo and furnished her 
with another weapon against him for the king’s use. 

Thenceforward, Caracciolo was a rebel, having fired 
on his sovereign’s flag. 

About this time, Ruffo was reinforced by some Rus- 
sians. The royalist forces elsewhere were relieved by 
the French retiring into Upper Italy, and they might 
soon strengthen the cardinal militant. As for the Land 
of Labor, it was entirely in Mammone’s hands and the 
king styled him “Dear General and Friend,” while the 
queen sent a ring to Fra Diavolo with her hair in it. 

At the verge of Ruffo’s reaping his harvest, a rumor 
was spread that he had raised his host, which, with all 
its stains, was irresistible, to capture Naples, not for the 
king again, but to make his brother, Francesco, lord 
paramount ! 

This view of how he was being undermined, quick- 
ened him to make a move less costly of blood, at least, 
by which the patriots would surrender. He proposed 


Traitor or Patriot? 


233 


to let them go from the country. The queen had dedi- 
cated the headmost to execution, but she had consented 
to the subordinates being exiled to France if “it cost too 
much to send them to America!” 

Ruffo obtained assent of the native republicans to a 
capitulation in which the rebels should have person and 
property guaranteed. They were to be sent to Toulon 
or might remain at their option. He signed, as did 
Captain Foote, left by Nelson in charge of the blockade. 

Unfortunately, within six-and-thirty hours, Nelson re- 
turned with seventeen sail, transporting nearly twenty 
thousand soldiers. The Duke of Calabria, the genuine 
this time, was on board to give the royal stamp on all 
proceedings. The Hamiltons were Nelson’s guests like- 
wise. 

The queen was at her villa of Favorita, at Palermo, 
when Captain Foote took the capitulation for approval. 
She had expected to hear quite another finale to the 
overthrow of the insolent revolutionists. She was ready 
to die of rage at not having her revenge. 

Emma found her writhing on a sofa and biting the 
pillow like a tigress. 

“What has happened?” she inquired. 

At her voice, the infuriated woman sprang up. 

“If you do not help me, the royalty is forever dis- 
honored, and I have nothing to do but return to Vienna, 
and die as mere archduchess !” 

Lady Hamilton had come to her rejoicing. 

“I understood that all was ended. Naples was re- 
taken, and I might write to London for new dresses for 
the balls and festivals sure to follow the triumph over 
your return.” 

“Festivals? If we give any when we pass into Naples, 
it will be the glorification of shame! Feasts! — pests! 
Oh, that abominable cardinal !” 


234 Traitor or Patriot? 

“Oh, has your majesty flown into this rage over that 
cardinal ?’’ 

“Wait till you hear what that soldier-priest has done! 
Don't you know that an English naval oflicer has brought 
the capitulation framed by the cardinal?" She pointed 
to the floor, strewn with fragments of writing paper. 
“There’s their capitulation! To treat in any way with 
those scoundrels ! to grant them life ! to give them free 
passage to Toulon ! As if exile were any punishment 
for the crimes they committed ! And he did that after 
I had written that there must be not one life spared !” 
Her rage redoubled. “Only one hope remains and that is 
based on you !” 

“The only woman who loves you !” said the English 
lady. “If anything depends on me, you will be saved.” 

“And they lost! Yes, on you and — Nelson.” 

The lovely Lamia’s smile replied more eloquently than 
any speech, however affirmative. 

“Nelson has not signed the agreement,” continued 
the irate queen. “He must refuse.” 

“But did not Captain Foote do so in his stead?” 

“There is our chance. Foote is not his alter ego, as 
the cardinal the king’s, and the admiral will say that he 
did not give Foote full acting powers and he will re- 
pudiate them.” 

“Well?” 

“Enchantress, it will be an easy task ! you must ob- 
tain from Nelson that he will treat the capitulation as I 
did — tear it up!” 

“I will try,” responded the smiling siren. “Where is 
my lord?” 

“Cruising off the Lipari Islands. He awaits Foote 
with my orders. You shall bear my orders and I do not 
believe he will debate them from your lips.” 

“What are the orders?” 


Traitor or Patriot? 


235 

“No treaty — or pardon ! Try to understand ! A Ca- 
racciolo who has insulted us and betrayed us! such a 
fellow to go and enter the French service — to return 
here and disembark his brother traitors on some lone 
spot of our land ! which he knows to be undefended ! 
Do you not also wish that man dead ?” 

“I have no wishes but yours.” 

Captain Foote was to receive, on the Seahorse, the 
queen’s written orders by Sir William Hamilton, but her 
real ones went by Lady Hamilton to Nelson direct. 

At this canceling of his work, Ruffo protested with 
the warmth which Ferdinando’s saver had a right to 
evince, but Nelson and Hamilton were both inspired by 
the same evil genius and became more and more bent on 
the rupture of the treaty and the resumption of hos- 
tilities. 

Ruffo was still the representative of the king. He 
smiled to hear that there was talk of imprisoning him 
on board the British ship, the Foudroyant. That was 
all that was lacking to show what they are paid who 
serve kings. But he simply threw away the shield which 
might protect him; he sent in his resignation. 

It is true that Nelson had bid him farewell very coldly 
after their last interview, when the cardinal could not 
swerve the other into doing justice. As the admiral 
turned back, a hand on his shoulder reminded him of 
whom he had pleased by his inhumanity. It was 
Emma. 

She came to say that Sir William wished to see him. 

The diplomat was closeted with one Scipion Lamarra, 
a spy of the queen. 

Lamarra was wishing to arrange the means of making 
a capture of Admiral Caracciolo, who had taken to flight 
on perceiving that the treaty would be annulled rather 


2)6 Traitor or Patriot? 

than he, as the queen’s own particular nightmare, should 
escape so easily. 

The spy came to announce that the prince had quitted 
town and had taken refuge in the house of one of his 
servants. The Englishmen not only urged him to pro- 
ceed on the quest, but pledged him the four thousand 
ducats head-money to him who produced the prize. La- 
marra immediately vowed that it should be his, or the 
greater portion of it. 

He had passed among the admiral’s crew as a friend 
of the family and so had learned that the refuge of their 
chief was at an old reliable servant’s. Where? It would 
not be in the city, as that would be under the lion’s 
claw. 

Lamarra reasoned that it would be more likely on one 
of the Caracciolo estates. In the open country, he could 
get away if hunted. One of these farms was at Calves- 
sano, at the foot of the mountains. As a sharp fellow, 
Lamarra judged that it would be there. A mountain is 
the natural refuge of the proscribed man. The man- 
hunter obtained a safe conduct from Nelson, and, dis- 
guised as a rustic, presented himself at the Calvessano 
farm as a patriotic refugee, who, fleeing as an outlaw 
and extenuated by hunger and crushed by fatigue, pre- 
ferred to die on a doorstep to staggering into the bare 
mountains. He entered the farm with what seemed the 
hardihood of desperation and begged a piece of bread 
and a truss of straw in the barn. 

The pretended fugitive played his part so well that the 
farmer had no suspicion. 

He hid him in a niche while he went out to make sure 
he was not hotly pursued. After a tour of the farm, he 
returned in ten minutes, drew him out of the hole, and, 
making him sit at table, gave him bread, cheese and 
wine. Scipion Lamarra pounced on the bread like a 


Traitor or Patriot? 


257 

famished man, gulping and munching with such avidity 
that the compassionate host calmed him into moderation, 
telling that there was no lack of meat and drink, and he 
might feast at leisure. 

As Lamarra was following this advice, in came an- 
other farmer-looking man, a little older than the master, 
who introduced him as his brother. The newcomer 
dropped Scipion a nod as if he were quite at home and, 
drawing a stool into the ingleside, sat down. The false 
fugitive remarked that the elder brother chose the dark- 
est corner. Having seen Admiral Caracciolo in Naples, 
Lamarra had need of no more than a glance to recognize 
the asserted brother of the peasant. 

Thereupon, the spy comprehended the whole pro- 
ceeding. The host had not dared receive any stranger 
without consulting with his lord; under cover of seeing 
that the fugitive was not followed, he had gone to get 
permission of Caracciolo. The latter, eager for news 
from the capital, had come in, less doubting than his 
tenant that the stranger was an outlaw. 

“So you come from Naples?” he inquired of the eat- 
ing man, affecting indifference. 

“Alas, yes.” He did not want to frighten the ad- 
miral for fear that he would seek another shelter. 
“They are shipping the patriots to Toulon,” said he, 
dolefully. 

“How is it you did not go with them ?” 

“Because I do not know a soul in France, but I have 
got a brother in Corfu. I am trying, therefore, to 
scramble along as far as Mamfredonia, where I hope to 
take ship.” 

The chat was confined to this. The man seemed so 
wearied that it was a pity to keep him up for gossip. 
Caracciolo told the farmer he had better see him abed, 
and Scipion took leave of the pair with warm protesta- 


Traitor or Patriot? 


238 

tions of gratitude. Arrived within a room, he bade his 
host good-night with a plea to be aroused in the morn- 
ing that he might make an early start for the seaside. 

“That chimes in — for I am going to Naples with the 
lark on the morrow !” replied the other. 

Lamarra did not risk any comment. He knew all he 
sought, and chance, often accomplice in dark crimes, had 
helped him beyond his wishes. 

As early as two, the farmer came to awaken him. In 
an instant he was up and ready dressed for his journey. 
The farmer gave him a little parcel prepared before- 
hand. A sandwich of ham and bread, and a bottle of 
wine. 

“My brother, who carries the bag, wants to know 
how you are off for money?” asked he. 

The harbored scoundrel felt some shame; he showed 
that he had a few pieces of gold in a purse; then, hav- 
ing had a by-path pointed out to him, he took leave, 
begged him to thank his brother for him, and off he 
went. 

But he had barely stepped a hundred paces than he 
turned and, skirting the farm, stopped where the road 
dipped between hills. He waited for the farmer, who 
must go that way if headed for Naples. 

In half an hour, through the shadows beginning to be 
enlightened, he distinguished a man’s outline, following 
the Calvessano road to the capital, and he soon recog- 
nized him as his befriender. He stepped plainly out to 
him. Recognized, likewise, the farmer stopped, amazed. 

“You? What are you dawdling here for?” 

“I was waiting for you to tell you that, by order of 
Lord Nelson, it is death to harbor a rebel !” 

“What has that to do with me?” 

“So far as you harbor Admiral Caracciolo. Not a bit 


Traitor or Patriot? 


239 

of use your denying, for I knew my lord — the man you 
would pass off on me as your brother.” 

“That can’t be all you have to tell me?” queried the 
man, with the grin of a traitor. 

“Ha, ha ! I see that we shall come to a bargain !” 

“How much were you promised if you handed over 
the admiral?” 

“Four thousand ducats, mate!” 

“That looks like two thousand for me !” 

“You open your mouth too wide, my friend !” 

“Yet I only half open it !” 

“Would you be content with two thousand?” 

“Yes, if no inquiries were made about any money the 
admiral brought to my house!” 

“But supposing things do not move as smoothly as you 
fancy ?” 

The farmer drew back a step and drew a pistol from 
each pocket. 

“If things do not come out at the hole I see, why, I 
shall stand you off and before you can get back to town 
— allowing a bullet does not stop your traveling — we 
shall be too far for you to overtake us.” 

“Look here, partner; I cannot, and be hanged if I 
wish to, do without your aid.” 

“It’s a bargain, eh?” 

“For my part, so! But if you will trust in me, I will 
take you to some one who will talk to you about your 
making money and will be no haggler about terms.” 

“Any name for this easy-going dealer?” 

“They call him Lord Nelson.” 

“So you come from him?” 

“I come from higher up !” 

“You said it ; we shall make the bargain ! Come, with 
you*” and the farmer chuckled. 

The two honest fellows jogged on toward Naples. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


THE SEA LION AND HIS PREY. 

On the night of the twenty-eighth, six sailors, dis- 
guised as countrymen, but armed to the teeth, were put 
ashore at Granatello, and, guided by Lamarra, reached 
Calvessano by three in the morning. 

The farmer was on the alert, while Caracciolo was 
sleeping in that profound trust honorable men have — un- 
fortunately, almost always in rogues. The admiral 
slept with his sword under his pillow and a brace of 
pistols on his night table; but, forwarned by the farmer 
of these precautions, the kidnapers, on rushing into the 
bedroom, made themselves masters of the weapons to 
begin with. 

Seeing that he was taken and that resistance would 
be fruitless, Caracciolo drew himself erect and held out 
his hands for the cords ready to bind them. He had 
been willing to avoid death as long as death did not face 
him ; but on its starting up, he bore himself gallantly as 
usual. 

A willow cart was at the door, waiting. Caracciolo 
was set in it; the guards sat around him and Scipion 
drove. The traitorous farmer kept in the background. 
He had settled about the price, and having received a 
part down, he would have the rest after delivery of his 
lord and master. 

Granatello was reached at seven, where the prisoner 
was transferred from cart to boat; the peasants re- 
became sailors and rowed out to the Foudroymt. 

Since ten o’clock, Nelson had been above decks watch- 


The Sea Lion and His Prey. 241 

ing, with his telescope to his eye, at this point. He 
saw a boat leave the shore, but at seven miles or so he 
could not make it out clearly. As it was the only object 
specking the calm and even surface, he did not turn his 
view from it. 

An instant afterward, the beautiful creature whom 
he had on board, smiling as if a feast day had dawned, 
showed her head by the steerway and came beside him. 
Though indolent, so that often half the day was gone 
before she began her day, she had risen betimes this 
morning with presentiment of great events brewing. 
Nelson pointed to the yawl, not venturing to declare it 
the prize, but judging by the straight course it traced for 
the ship that it was their wish realized. 

“Where is Sir William?” inquired he. 

“I was going to put the same question to you,” 
laughed the lady. 

“Parkinson,” said the admiral, also laughing, “try to 
find Sir William and tell him that the boat is coming off 
with what we sought, I believe.” 

During the short space while the young officer was 
bringing Hamilton, the boat continued to approach, and 
Nelson’s doubts to fade. Though disguised as peasants 
the rowers plied the ash too regularly to be such, and, 
besides, standing at the prow, and making triumphal 
signs, was Lamarra. By the time Sir William had joined 
the two, there was no room for misgivings. Nelson had 
recognized the queen’s spy and told by his signs that 
Caracciolo was the prisoner being brought. 

What stirred the hero’s heart as he learned this longed- 
for event? Neither romancist nor historian has eyes 
sufficiently piercing to see underneath the impassibility 
expanded over his visage. 

Soon the three interested in this capture could descry 


V 


242 


The Sea Lion and His Prey. 

the admiral bound and lying in the boat. His body, set 
athwart, served as cushion to two of the oarsmen ! 

It might not be thought worth while to go around the 
ship to reach the side ladder, ready slung there, or it 
was intended to carry derision to a shame. The boat 
was simply run along the other side, where a seaman 
hooked on with a gaff, and Lamarra climbed by a simple 
rope ladder hanging for common use. He wanted to be 
the first to announce to the Englishman the success of 
his errand. 

Meanwhile, the seamen untied the admiral’s legs so 
he could mount. But they left his wrists bound, with 
such rigidity that when the bonds were taken off, they 
left bloody tokens from their numerous biting coils. 

The Neapolitan had to pass before the inimical group 
whose joy insulted his plight, and was led to a between- 
decks room, where two sentries were stationed at the 
door. 

Hardly had the prize made this brief passing, than 
Sir William hastened down to his stateroom eager to be 
foremost in telling the gladsome news to the king and 
queen, and wrote : 

“We have just seen the sight of Caracciolo, pale, half 
dead, his eyes downcast, with a long-grown beard, and 
his hands pinioned. He has been brought aboard the 
Foudroyant. His trial will take place before Sicilian 
officers. If condemned, which is likely, his sentence 
will be immediately executed. He seems half dead with 
mortification. He demands to be tried by English 
officers.” 

Hamilton was right about the trial not going to be 
long. Nelson had at once asked Count Thurn to take 
the matter in hand. He did not trouble about hearing 
the evidence or weighing it; all in his province was to 
utter the sentence and determine the penalty! 


The Sea Lion and His Prey. 24} 

He fixed the court to be on his own vessels, for 
(Clarke’s “Life of Nelson” shows it) the admiral feared 
that if it took place on a Neapolitan deck, the crew would 
revolt, “so beloved was Caracciolo by his navy.” 

So the Neapolitan council of war assembled in the 
English ship. On scanning the row of judges, Carac- 
ciolo shook his head ; they had all served under him and 
he knew them as court intriguers who would not dare 
absolve him. 

Though under fifty, his unpowdered and undressed 
hair and untrimmed long beard, made him appear 
seventy. Before the court, he drew himself up to his 
full height, and recovered the assurance, firmness and 
demeanor of the man born to command; his features, 
which had been convulsed with wrath, assumed the mold 
of haughty calmness. 

He did not deign to answer the questioning, but 
branded his answer to this, in summary : 

“I was not serving the Republic, but my country; I 
was not fighting against the royalty, but murder, pillage 
and incendiaries. I was long merely a private soldier 
when I was constrained to take command of the Repub- 
lican navy, a post impossible for me to refuse.” 

For that matter, Captain Trowbridge had written to 
his chief three months previously to the effect that “Ca- 
racciolo had been seen mounting guard at the palace; 
he had refused to do service, but the republicans had 
compelled everybody to take a turn.” 

Being asked why, if he was forced to go on military 
duty, he had not taken advantage of the numerous open- 
ings for escape, he answered that flight was flight under 
any circumstances, and that it might have been nicety 
about honor which retained him, but he was so with- 
held. If it were a crime, still he avowed it. 

The interrogation stopped there and then. All that 


244 


The Sea Lion and His Prey. 

was wanted was a clear admission, which they had ob- 
tained from his simple, calm and dignified confession. 
His manner had “won the sympathy of those English 
officers who understood Italian.” But the crime was 
proven. 

Caracciolo was taken back to his prison-room and still 
doubly guarded. 

Thurn carried the sentence report to Nelson. He read 
it greedily; ferocious glee was seen on his face. He 
snatched up a pen, approved, and set the place of execu- 
tion to be on the Minerva , the mode, hanging at the 
yardarm, and the time, that day at 5 P. M. The body 
was to hang until sunset, when the rope should be cut 
and the body cast into the sea. 

Two bystanders were next the admiral when he wrote 
this decree. Faithful to a promise made the queen, 
Emma Hamilton remained dumb and did not utter a 
word in favor of the culprit. But Sir William, though 
tolerably insensible in this quarter, could not abstain 
from remarking: 

“Mercy dictates that a sentenced man should have 
twenty-four hours to prepare for death.” 

“I have no mercy for traitors,” was Nelson’s stern 
rejoinder. 

“If no mercy, give religion its due !” 

Without replying, Nelson handed the sentence to 
Thurn, saying to him : 

“Have that executed.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 


THE BLOTCH ON THE GLORY. 

During the solemn hours trailing between the decision 
and the execution, Caracciolo made two calls for Lieu- 
tenant Parkinson to intercede for him with his superior — 
to obtain a revision of the judgment, and to alter the 
mode of death ; to be shot and not hanged. 

Admiral Caracciolo had often expected to die by shot 
or the boarder’s ax, if not the headsman’s. His title of 
princedom gave him the right to die under the ax. His 
rank as admiral entitled him to die like a soldier. Both 
claims were annulled by his being assigned to perish as 
assassins and thieves do, by an infamous death. 

Not only had Nelson gone beyond his powers by con- 
demning one equal to him in naval rank and superior 
to him by social degree, to a death which, to Caracciolo’s 
eyes, doubled the horrors of the parting pang. 

To escape this shame he had stooped to imploring. 

“I am an old man,” he said to Parkinson; “I do not 
leave any family to mourn my passing; it will not be 
supposed that at my age and isolated as I am, that I suf- 
fer at quitting life ; but the disgrace of dying like a pirate 
is unbearable and I own that it breaks my heart.” 

During the lieutenant’s absence he was agitated and 
uneasy. It was clear that on the young officer’s return, 
he bore a refusal. 

“I am giving you Lord Nelson’s speech word for 
word,” said the messenger: ‘Caracciolo has been impar- 
tially tried by his own country’s officers; it is no place 
for me, a foreigner, to interfere.’ ” 


246 The Blotch on the Glory. 

The Italian smiled bitterly. 

“So, so, Lord Nelson had the right to intervene to 
have me hanged but not to have me shot instead? But, 
perchance, my young friend, you did not press the prayer 
as another might have done?” 

“Prince,” answered poor Parkinson, with his eyes 
wet, “I so persisted that my lord wagged his finger at 
me and said : ‘Lieutenant, if I have any warning to give 
you it would be, mind your own business!’ Never mind 
that!” he continued, “if your excellency has any other 
mission for me to undertake, dash me if I will not do it 
with all my heart, though they break me for it !” 

Caracciolo smiled to see how the officer was affected 
and offered him his hand, with the words : 

“I applied to you because you were the youngest offi- 
cer, and it is rarely at your age one has a hard heart. 
A question : Do you believe that if one applies to Lady 
Hamilton she could obtain any favor from Lord Nel- 
son ?” 

“She has great influence over my lord. Let us try 
it!” said Parkinson. 

“Well, do so; beseech her. It may be, in a happier 
time, I did her some wrong, but let her forget that, and 
in commanding the file of soldiers to shoot at me, I will 
fall, blessing her.” 

Parkinson went out and, not finding the lady on the 
deck, pushed his way to her quarters, but the door re- 
mained closed against all his entreaties. On his account, 
Caracciolo saw that all hope was gone, and not wishing 
to abase his dignity, shook the young gentleman’s hand 
and forebore any more speaking. 

At one o’clock, Count Thurn came in to announce the 
leaying the Foudroyant to go over to the Minerva , and 
directed two seamen to bind his hands. Caracciolo held 
them out. But the count explained that they must be 


The Blotch on the Glory. 247 

bound behind him after sentence. He put his hands be- 
hind him. The rope was left with a long end, which 
one sailor held. Without doubt, it was feared that if he 
were free to walk, he might leap overboard to exchange 
the ignominious death for suicide. 

Hence, like a murderer, the Prince of Caracciolo, ad- 
miral of Naples and of the Parthenopean Republic, was 
thrust off the Foudroyant’s deck, bound and in leash, 
passing through a double file of the English seamen. 
Outrage carried so far overleaps and falls back on the 
perpetrator. 

The two long-boats, armed for war, accompanied the 
one carrying the culprit. 

They accosted the Minerva. On again seeing at close 
range the fine frigate which had been his throne and 
had carried him so splendidly to Palermo, the admiral 
sighed. He was forced to mount by the weather or in- 
terior side-ladder. On deck were ranged the officers, 
marines and seamen. 

It was half-past one. 

As it was his former chaplain who kept that post on 
the Neapolitan ship, he submitted to his consolations, 
and expressed that he felt the stronger for them and 
the more resigned. 

At five o’clock, a picket took him upon deck. He 
noticed one of his old sailors in grief. Without speak- 
ing, the man showed that he was holding the fatal rope. 

“As no one ashore knew how I was going to die, no 
one weeps for me but you, old shipmate! Shake my 
hand and tell my family how I was ‘turned off !’ ” 

Glancing off, he perceived a group on the Foudroyant. 
Of the three, one held a spyglass. 

“Stand aside, my men !” said he to the sailors sur- 
rounding him. “You are blocking Lord Nelson’s view 
of me!” 


248 The Blotch on the Glory. 

The cord had been run through a block at the tip of 
the mizzenmast-yard. It dangled over his head. 

Count Thurn waved his sword. 

The slip-knot having been passed around the admiral’s 
neck, twelve men, manning the line, hauled the body 
up to ten or more feet aloft. At the same time, a gun 
was fired. 

Lord Nelson’s amendment to the sentence was per- 
formed. 

Although he had not missed a point in the act, from 
the moment when the gun was fired, the count went 
down into the cabin and wrote the report, which was 
carried over to the English flagship. It was dated : 
“On board his Sicilian majesty’s ship, the Minerva \ this 
29th day of June, 1799.” 

As Nelson meanwhile had seen the dying body swing- 
ing, he had gone down into his cabin, where he wrote to 
Lord Acton : 

“My Lord : I have no time to transmit the finding of 
the judges and their trial of the miserable Caracciolo, 
and will only say here that he has submitted to the just 
decree pronounced against him. I inclose my approval.” 

By the same mail carrier, Sir William wrote to the 
same, confirming the execution. “But for God’s sake, 
induce the king to come aboard the F oudroyant and hoist 
his royal standard there.” 

The admiral’s logbook contained the following: 

“Saturday, 29th June; weather still but misty; ar- 
rived H. M. ship Rainha and the brig Balloon. A court- 
martial was held, tried, doomed and had executed Fran- 
cesco Caracciolo, on board the Neapolitan frigate, the 
Minerva ” 

King Ferdinando was reassured, Queen Carolina satis- 
fied, Emma Lyonna accursed, and Nelson dishonored! 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


"they rise again/' 

The admiral’s execution spread deep consternation 
over Naples. 

To whatever party a man belonged, he acknowledged 
the prince to have been worthy of consideration for his 
birth and talents; his life had been irreproachable, and 
pure of all moral blemishes. 

His doing to death was a terrifying sight ; at sundown, 
as ordered, the rope had been cut, and the body, on which 
all eyes were fastened, no longer sustained, rapidly 
plunged into the sea, dragged down by the cannon balls 
fixed to the heels. Then a piteous outcry escaped from 
all lips and ran over the waves like the complain of the 
Spirit of the Waters, echoing against the Foudroy ant’s 
sides. 

The gunshot and, then, the sight of the hanging man 
had drawn the cardinal’s servants’ attention that way, 
and it was related to him ; but he could not recognize 
the body and it was by direct report from Nelson that he 
learned the cruel truth. It was the more cruel as Carac- 
ciolo and he had agreed to protect one another as the 
fortunes of war rendered either of power to the other. 

"Alas !” he exclaimed, letting his arms fall by his 
side, "to what have we come that the English hang 
Neapolitan princes in our own port !” 

This communication was a matter of duty or it was an 
insult ; and an insult to him, the royal vicar-general, with 
the sole power of life and death, was a defiance. 


“They Rise Again.” 


2^0 

How could Lord Nelson, subject of the English King 
George, condemn in the name of King Ferdinando? 

The queen would not accept his resignation and the 
king was coming to set his seal on the tragedy on the 
Minerva. 

In fact, on the morn of the ninth of July, two sail 
were entering the harbor. The English one was the 
Seahorse , Captain Foote, and the Neapolitan the Siren , 
flaunting the royal standard; the monarch had declined 
English transport. His former preference would have 
aggravated the Neapolitan defection in his navy, which 
the Caracciolo affair had breached. 

With the ruler came Acton and Castelcicala ; the 
queen had stayed behind, dreading her unpopularity. 
The king spent the day at Procida, considering the death 
warrants to the surrendered and imprisoned rebels and 
signing away the lives of some forty thousand ! The 
more gentle process of exile would drive away sixty 
thousand — more than a quarter of the Naples population ! 

By the way, the name of Caracciolo had a chance still 
of being prolonged as Nicolini, after becoming governor 
of St. Elmo Castle, had escaped and lived to be an old 
man. 

Next morning the king came from Procida, still on 
the Siren . The British saluted as he neared and all the 
people left their houses to see the return. 

As it was least awkward to enter a capital under the 
fire of a castle still in the enemy’s hands, the king was 
urged by Cardinal Ruffo, who joined him upon the Foud- 
royant, for that purpose, to approve the capitulation. 
But Nelson and Lady Hamilton — his evil genius, says 
Sacchinelli, the historian of the period — protested the 
agreement should be null and void. 

Upon this, the cardinal, veiling his red cheek with a 
flap of his purple robe, went ashore into the house where 


“They Rise Again.” 251 

the treaty had been signed, and vowed this treacherous 
monarchy to Divine vengeance. 

The same day, the prisoners on the English and other 
ships were taken two by two in chains, to the prisons. 

The lazzaroni seeing this, thought that, with King 
“Nosey,” the days of massacre had come again, and set 
to sacking and pillaging as merrily as when King Mob 
reigned in the town. The chroniclers mildly say that 
their pens refuse to trace the picture of the crimes and 
infamous deeds enacted. 

While the slaughtering was going on in the town, 
there was a holiday on the water. 

The British flagship entertained the “homing” sover- 
eign. The F oudroymit gave a supper and a ball. The 
floating fortress was a magical show; illumined from 
stem to stern and from waterline to tops, all her thousand 
flags fluttered in the glow and blaze, and her rigging 
was but the web of a woof of laurels. 

On this tenth of July, 1799, Nelson was giving royalty 
the return feast for that which greeted him on the 
twenty-second of September, 1798. 

But, like the other, this festival was to have its ghost 
— more awful, fatal and funereal than a representative 
of the French Republic — the king of the eternal realm 
of perfect equality: Death. 

Around the lighted ship spectators with music circled 
in boats. These orchestras repeated the airs played by 
the ship’s band. The gulf under the out-dazzled, though 
magnificent moon, was a sheet of harmony. 

Naples was verily this night the ancient Parthenope, 
that siren who drowned herself because she failed to 
ensnare Ulysses. 

At midnight, a rocket which mounted aloft and burst 
in the deep azure of that world’s envied sky, gave the 
signal for the banquet. The dancing ceased without the 


252 


“They Rise Again.” 


music doing so, and the guests went down into the gun- 
deck, where sentinels prevented entrance. 

The grim man-of-war had “made itself handsome” for 
the revels. 

The table extended from the foredeck to the poop, the 
vast distance centupled by enormous mirrors being set at 
each end. On each side of the stern looking-glasses, a 
door opened to give a view of the admiral’s cabin, an 
elegant gallery. 

On the board was an encumbering set-out of English 
cut crystal, the decanters colored with the choicest wines 
and cordials, giving tones of precious stones from the 
diamond’s limpidity to the ruby’s carmine. Roast veni- 
son and pheasants, a swan, peacocks with their tails un- 
smirched, and fish of stupefying size, with flowers and 
fruit in full bloom and out of season, for which famous 
English hothouses had been ransacked — these tantalized 
while promising raptures. 

The countless candles glittered on trophies of arms, 
bunched between each two portholes, muskets, cutlasses, 
boarding-pikes and axes, oft stained with French blood, 
small firearms and flags — these seemed stars of steel 
rays. 

Habituated as Ferdinando was to luxurious display, 
he could not refrain from a cry of admiration. He took 
his place at the table, having Lady Hamilton on his 
right, Nelson on his left, and Sir William opposite him. 
The others took places according to court usage. 

He may have missed the cardinal, but as he had said, 
with his mocking smile after his flight from Rome: “It 
is better at Caserta than on the Albano road !” he now 
said: “This beats the sea-road to Palermo!” in allusion 
to the stormy passage. 

Nelson’s sickly cheek and pallid brow turned red, for 

this reminded him of how Caracciolo had carried the 


“They Rise Again.” 


253 

prince royal more speedily and less painfully over the 
same waters. But his sole eye flashed and a smile curled 
his lips, for his vengeance was glutted. The pilot had 
sailed on the ocean which has no harbor of refuge ! 

At the end of the supper, the band played “God Save 
the King!” and Nelson, with the implacable native pride 
which bows to no outside rules, rose and without think- 
ing of the royal guest, or that there was another sover- 
eign, proposed the health of his king. The hearty cheers 
of the English officers, echoed by those of the sailors 
manning the yards, hailed this toast; the guns of the 
second battery saluted. 

Beneath his careless mien, King Ferdinando hid a 
strong subjection to etiquette; this rudeness caused him 
to bite his lip. 

Five minutes afterward, Sir William proposed “The 
Guest of the Evening!” but although the same cheers 
arose and the like salute was fired, Ferdinando thought 
the order of the toasts should have been reversed. So 
galled, and noticing that the crowds in the boats had 
taken up the hurrahing and pressed closely, he consid- 
ered that they should be given a share in his gratitude. 
So he nodded his thanks to Hamilton, drank off his glass 
and, stepping to the gallery, stood on it, where he had 
heard the waiters for the crumbs at the banquet. At 
sight of him, the vivas and huzzas redoubled. The roar 
of “Long live the king !” seemed to be exhaled out of the 
depths. 

He bowed and was carrying his glass to his lips when 
his hand suddenly was stayed. His gaze was fixed ; his 
eyes dilating horribly; and a hoarse exclamation, paint- 
ing at once terror and astonishment, rattled in his gorge 
and tore its way forth. 

At the same time a great confusion arose among the 
boats, which flew asunder like pearl fishers when the 


2S4 


“They Rise Again.” 


shark rises among them. They left a broad open space. 
In its midst rose a more terrible thing; lifted up out to 
the waist, a human cadaver “trod water,” so to say. 
Spite of the seaweed mingled with the hair, the beard 
standing on end, and the livid flesh, the face might be 
recognized as Admiral Caracciolo’s ! 

Those shouts of “Long live the king!” would seem to 
have drawn him from the bottom of the sea, where he 
had dwelt thirteen days, in order that he should come 
and cross with his call for vengeance the bravo! of cow- 
ardice and flattery. 

At the first glance, the king had known him, and so 
had everybody else. That was why he had been petri- 
fied, his arm held up and his look fixed, while in his 
throat rattled the gasp of awe. That was why the boats 
fled in fright, with a movement hurried and unanimous. 

For a space Ferdinando wished to doubt this appari- 
tion ; but uselessly. Following the undulations, the 
corpse fell and rose, as if saluting the monarch who 
stared mute and motionless with fear. But, gradually, 
the cramped nerves of the spellbound gazer relaxed, his 
hand trembled and let the glass drop to shiver on the 
rail, and he came in, white, frightened, panting, hiding 
his face in his hands, and croaking : 

“What does he want? what does he want of me?” 

At the voice, and his visible dread, painted on his 
countenance, all the guests sprang up also alarmed, and 
ran out into the gallery to see what there had so ap- 
palled him. 

At that same instant, through all bosoms, passed those 
words like the electric shock, and out of all mouths was 
groaned : 

“It’s the admiral! It is Caracciolo!” 

The king had fallen into a chair, still muttering: 

“What does he want of me?” 


'They Rise Again.” 


255 

“Pardon for his treason,” insinuated Sir William, who 
was the courtier even before a corpse and an awe-struck 
monarch. 

“No! he asks something else,” contradicted the king. 

“Christian burial !” said the ship's chaplain. 

“You are right, reverence! and he shall have it!” re- 
sponded the other. 

Rising, staggering against the stair banisters, strik- 
ing against the door jams, he precipitated himself toward 
his rooms, where he closed the door behind him. 

“Hardy, get out a boat and fetch that carcass in !” or- 
dered Nelson, in the same voice as he would have used 
to bid the recovery of a stray hencoop washed over- 
board. 

But his feats had finished like Athalia’s dream, by a 
thunderclap. 

Lady Hamilton had tried at the start to stand firm 
against the shocking sight; but the “send” of the waves 
from the southeastern breeze, so visibly pushed the 
flotsam toward the battleship that she retired backward 
and fell swooning in an armchair. 

It was then that Nelson, unshakeable in his fearless- 
ness as pitiless in his enmity, gave the order for the 
hideous waif to be removed. 

The order had been instantly executed; a boat had 
been let down, into which six men and a coxswain 
dropped, and Captain Hardy had followed them. 

Like a flight of birds among which had swooped a 
sparrow-hawk, all the boats had glanced aloof from the 
corpse and were gliding away with the lights extin- 
guished and the music hushed; at each stroke of the 
nimble oars, a spot of sparks marked the retreat. 

Those parted from the shore by the horror made a 
large circuit and rowed the faster as they had the greater 
space to cover. 


“They Rise Again.” 


256 

On shipboard, all the guests had recoiled as far as 
possible and called for their boats. The English offi- 
cers, collected in the gallery, looked out upon the dead 
body and jeered it more or less coarsely while Hardy’s 
cutter was nearing it with stout pulling. 

On getting up to it, but seeing that his crew hesitated 
about handling it, the captain himself grabbed it by the 
hair and sought to lift it up out of the water. But it 
would seem that an invisible power detained it, so heavy 
had it become, and the grisly locks were left in his hand. 
Uttering an oath, in which disgust dominated, he washed 
his hands in the sea, and ordered two men to catch hold 
of the rope, still sunk into the swollen neck, and haul it 
aboard. 

But the neck could no longer support the weight of 
the trunk, and the detached head solely obeyed the effort 
and bounced into the boat. 

Hardy stamped. 

“Ha ! devil’s block !” he growled ; “you may resist your 
best, but you shall come away with us, though it shall be 
by joint and limb !” 

By a new order, the men slewed the rope around the 
body and hauled; but though the removal out of the 
water lessened all by a third in weight, the four men 
united only managed with the greatest difficulty to get 
the mass within the gunwale. 

“Well done, Hardy, sir !” shouted the English offi- 
cers, clapping their hands with many a burst of laughter. 

The boat returned and was fastened on under the bow. 
Curious to understand the phenomenon of the flotation, 
the officers ran forward, while the guests were quitting 
furtively by either way down, spurred on to have no 
more of a sight diabolical, or supernatural, to most 
minds. 

Sir William had sagely recalled that, after a certain 


"They Rise Again.” 


257 

time, dead bodies evolve gases which must cause a rising ; 
but what was astonishing, extraordinary, and miraculous 
was that the admiral’s remains should ascend to daunt 
the king when it had had two heavy cannon balls tied to 
the feet. Captain Hardy affirms, in his report, that they 
weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. 

As the king had recommended Christian burial for the 
castaway, the chaplain went down into the boat and be- 
gan to say the offices of the dead. Aid came to him 
from an unexpected quarter. Through the midst of the 
swarm of boats making for the land, one boat came 
contrawise. It was propelled by two rowers and con- 
tained a monk, a strapping Franciscan, who stood up 
and yielded to the motion more like a sailor than any- 
thing else. 

In a word, it was that Father Pacifico who had led 
the natives against the French and the revolutionists 
with a skill which would be remarkable in any priest, 
but ceased to astound when one learned that he had been 
a man-of-war’s-man. What explained his putting off to 
seek the admiral’s body was his having been a seaman 
under his orders. 

His boat running alongside the British one, his men 
hooked on to it and he exchanged a few words with 
the chaplain. As the latter had but to repeat that the 
king had acceded to his suggestion that the body should 
be interred properly, he might renounce his charge to the 
Franciscan. So the monk, with the admiral’s remains, 
pushed off and his rowers bore the boat with its new load 
to St. Lucia. This was Prince Caracciolo’s parish. 

Though this was essentially an aristocratic ward, 
Caracciolo had been so kind that he was beloved. Be- 
sides, the navy drew its best sailors from this same part. 
All those who, like Fra Pacifico himself, had served un- 
der him, had preserved a lively memory of those three 


“They Rise Again / 7 


258 

qualities endearing a man to his inferiors — bravery, kind- 
ness and fair play. Caracciolo united these parts in a 
high degree. 

It follows that at the first words exchanged with the 
fishers, who came running up, and the rumor spreading 
that the admiral was seeking to be laid to rest among 
his old neighbors and shipmates, all the district sprang 
into life, and the monk had only to pit his choice on any 
house to have it as the chapel to lay the body out in 
state. He chose the nearest. 

Twenty hands offered to carry the dead; but, as be- 
fore, the monk took up in his arms his old captain, and 
put it on a couch, after which he returned to get the 
head, which he carried as piously as though it were a 
saint’s relic. 

Pacifico called for a sheet. In five minutes, twenty 
women were hurrying out of their houses, vociferating: 
“Take mine for the martyr! that will bring our house 
good luck !” 

The monk chose the whitest, finest and best, and 
wrapped up the remains together with the head, placed 
properly and not, as a criminal’s usually is when be- 
headed, between his knees. 

In the next house, hammer and nails were heard; it 
was a joiner’s and he was making the coffin as his grief 
offering. When it was brought, the monk put in it his 
old commander. All the women brought each some 
token, be it of green bough or a flower or two, so that 
the bier disappeared under the garlands. 

By this time, the church bells at little St. Lucia’s 
tolled, and the clergy came to relieve the friar of the 
Cordeliers. 

The coffin was nailed up; six old sailors, formerly in 
the navy, were the pallbearers and took the coffin on 


“They Rise Again.” 259 

their shoulders. The monk walked on behind. All the 
population of Santa Lucia followed him. 

Exaggerated in all, the Neapolitans, who had very 
likely clapped applause at the admiral hanging, now 
melted into tears and burst into sobbing as the priests 
entoned the funeral hymns. The women tore their faces 
and the men beat their breasts. 

A looker-on would think it a public woe or universal 
calamity. 

The coffin was put in a vault, but not the family one; 
it was sealed up, and when the crowd departed none was 
left but the sailor-monk praying for his old captain. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


THE SHADOW FALLS. 

One evening the royal family of Sicily were gathered 
in the rooms where they were seen by us playing cards, 
embroidering banners for the Holy Faith army, talking 
politics and archaeology, and Lady Hamilton holding the 
faro bank. Nothing was changed now ; the king was 
still playing Reversino; Emma strewing gold over her 
table while chatting with Nelson in an undertone; and 
the royal mother and her brood working, not a war flag, 
but a banner for some saint to whom she attributed the 
clearing of the kingdom of revolutionists and traitors. 

But things had changed elsewhere. 

The vanquished and exiled monarch was conquering 
and triumphant, thanks to Ruffo, Fra Diavolo and Mam- 
mone, the miller. 

But the tables were turned ; General Brune had beaten 
the English at Almaker, and Massena, the Russians at 
Zurich. Yet nothing much had happened in Italy near 
here. The slight fluctuations “left a man enough to eat 
and drink,” to use Ferdinando’s plain speech. With 
his devil-may-care air, he added another vulgarism, ap- 
plied at Naples to moral matters : 

“What does not choke, will fatten!” 

So the king was joking as he played cards, when the 
Prince of Castelcicala was called aside by the prince 
royal entering briskly, and spoken to. No sooner was 
this short colloquy over than Castelcicala, as animatedly 
as might pass in a royal room, went over to the queen and 
conferred with her. She had quickly lifted up her head. 


The Shadow Falls. 261 

“Notify Nelson,” she said, “and let him join us and 
the prince royal in my study !” 

When the admiral was with them, the queen said : 

“Francesco, tell his lordship the pretty fiction you re- 
lated to Castelcicala !” 

“Madam,” replied the heir to the crown, with the awe 
in which he stood of his mother, whom he felt did not 
love him, “the captain of an American vessel reports 
that he met, off Malta, two French ships-of-war, on one 
of which was General Bonaparte.” 

“What do you think of this intelligence?” demanded 
the queen, anxiously, of the admiral. 

“It is grave, but one must not be immeasurably dis- 
quieted. I will see about it. Meanwhile, return to your 
needle and let the king go on with his cards. Supposing 
General Bonaparte does land in Europe, it is only a man 
the more.” 

The king, on this being repeated to him, was not so 
unmoved as the Englishman. His mind galloped on with 
the consequences of this “man the more” on the checker- 
board of Europe. 

“Faith ! this Bonaparte will cut through Lord Keith’s 
fleet as he did through Sir Sydney Smith’s, and, if he 
lands, he will, in three weeks, be in Paris ! It is your 
turn to ‘cut’ — as ‘Boney’ will the Austrians in the next 
game !” 

This pun having delighted him, he went on playing 
as if what he heard was not worth stopping his game 
for. 

The execution of the hapless Caracciolo was the last 
one of any consequence at Naples. 

Ferdinando was correct; Bonaparte did deceive Lord 
Keith, and landed at Frejus. On the ninth of November 
following, he executed that stroke of active politics 
called “the eighteenth Brumaire;” on the fourteenth of 


262 


The Shadow Falls. 


June, he won the battle of Marengo, and, in signing the 
peace with Austria and the Two Sicilies, he exacted 
from Ferdinando the end of the executions, the opening 
of the prisons and the return of the banished. 

The House of the Bourbons in Naples has ceased to 
exist; the crimes of the fathers had fallen on the chil- 
dren to the third and fourth generation. 

******* 

In 1805, a Saturday, October 19th, the companion- 
day in England’s proud days to Waterloo, the battle of 
Trafalgar was fought. 

On going into this tremendous action, the united fleets 
of France and Spain not ten miles off, Nelson wrote 
that he left Lady Hamilton — Sir William was dead — “as 
a legacy to his country,” as she had procured royal let- 
ters to serve the British Government, and had, by her 
sway over the Queen of Naples, wrung permission for 
the English fleet to be supplied at Syracuse, whereby “we 
went to Egypt and destroyed the French fleet.” 

By the same document, he left “to the beneficence of 
his country his daughter, Horatia.” 

It was hard to believe at the time, and it is next to 
incredible now, that “the Mistress of the Seas” suffered 
the lovely lady, to whom she was indebted for the vic- 
tory of the Nile, to die in abject poverty and obscurity. 
Was the cup of such ingratitude full by this? Not so. 
Horatia Nelson died also, at an advanced age, in all 
but as supreme misery as her mother — whose extraordi- 
nary loveliness lives on the unfading canvas of Romney. 

Monarchies, like republics, can be ungrateful ! 


THE END. 































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